Moroccan Carrot Salad

Last night I made Moroccan Carrot Salad, as seen on the rec.food.recipes newsgroup.  It sounded intriguing and I figured it would supplement our contribution of mass quantities of beverages to my grandmother’s birthday party today.

I upped it to two pounds… highly approximate on the carrot front, as it was the end of a 3 lb bag and part of a new 3 lb bag.  We’ve been going through carrots lately, cooked and in salads.  Sadie loves carrot sticks, though it’s freaky when she chipmunks them and spits them out an hour later in favor of eating something else.

I bought a real lemon on my trip to the Farmer’s Outlet, with no clue how much juice a lemon produces.  It turned out to be exactly the needed 4 tablespoons.  Cool.

Having no idea what orange blossom water even was, but being intrigued by the idea of a slight orange tinge, I added some juice squeezed from an orange section.  That, maybe a tablespoon, was too much.  The half cup of extra virgin olive oil seemed to be too much, too.

I was unimpressed right after it was done and well stirred together.  It was sour/oily/orange enough then that I added two extra tablespoons of honey.

After sitting overnight, it’s good.  Not fantastically amazing, and still needs to be tried with variations to make it more to my taste (might be as simple as adding more ginger and/or cinammon, of which I added almost none), but sort of tangy, sweet and nutty at once.  Sadie seems to like it a lot.  Deb likes it but thinks the lemon and honey taste like they’re doing battle.  Indeed.  I suspect it’s going to be a matter of taste, who likes it a lot or not so much.

For convenience, here’s the actual recipe as I originally saw it on Usenet and used it in slightly modified form, all credit the the source link:

Moroccan Carrot Salad

1 lb sweet carrots peeled and fine grated/fine shredded
1/2 cup light or dark raisins
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp honey
1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp orange flower water or to taste
cinnamon and powdered ginger to taste
salt and pepper to taste

The orange flower water adds a delicate and exotic orange flavor to this
different but pleasant tasting salad. I serve the salad in a dark blue
serving bowl for a striking appearance.  Mix all together and adjust
flavoring ( honey, lemon spices etc. ) to taste. Chill very well. Garnish
with fresh mint.  Yield 4 to 6 servings. Multiply recipe as needed.

(And yes, I did use a blue bowl, which coincidentally happened to be my best option for one-bowl prep and serving.  It is a nice visual.)

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