Yemeni Carrots with Zhug & Yoghurt

Not just a way of using up woody winter carrots. These make a great light tea. It’s from Yemen and is spicy. I reckon it’s almost impossible to find Lahooh, the Lebanese flatbread, and so Yotam Ottolengi (one of my food heroes), suggests crumpets as a reasonable twist.

Zhug is a spicy Yemenite sauce. It has a quite a kick so make sure he has plenty of yoghurt if he can’t take it.

500g carrots, preferably not too big

1 onion, finely chopped

50g olive oil

½ tsp sugar

1 tsp ground coriander

Salt

6 crumpets

200ml cold Turkish yoghurt

Zhug

4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

3 hot green chillies, roughly chopped

2 spring onions, roughly chopped

½  tsp each ground cloves, ground cardamom, salt

1 tbsp water

40g chopped coriander leaves

Peel the carrots, cut into short batons and boil for 8 minutes until cooked. Don’t boil the life out of them. Drain and leave aside, so they dry out.

Sauté the onion – when it’s soft, add the carrot and the sugar with the ground coriander and salt. Stir well and take off the heat.

Make the Zhug. Everything but the fresh coriander gets blended. A Mini Processor will work wonders here, though mine seems to make twice the noise of the regular sized one. You want a coarse paste. This is as rough and rustic as a labouring boy from a Thomas Hardy novel.

Add the coriander leaves and then tip into the carrot mix. Add salt. Slowly reheat. (Reheat, not fry!)

Lightly toast the crumpets and top generously with the carrots. Spilling off would be fine. Garnish with more coriander leaves. Serve with a big spoonful of the yoghurt on the side. Give him an extra spoonful if he doesn’t like his chilies. 

This is probably going to fall to bits if eaten with the hands, though you could certainly try cutting the crumpets in half and giving it a go. Whatever you do he’ll get hiccups from the chillies. Try all the usual remedies.