I read an article about cooking the other day (wish I could find it to link to it) that encouraged you to taste your food throughout the cooking process, because a good meal will taste good every step of the way. If any particular step tastes off or bland, the recipe suggested that you fix it then, or the problem will persist throughout the dish. I’m not entirely sure this is right (certainly it works best with vegetarian dishes; tasting meat before it’s done is not really recommended), but it’s been interesting to think about.
I often think of cooking as a simple layering process. Almost always, I start with an onion, garlic & olive oil layer, and then the dish builds from there: dried spices, longer-cooking vegetables, shorter cooking vegetables, cheese/nuts/sauce, fresh herbs, lemon juice or vinegar, and so forth. And a bit of salt at almost every layer — I find salting throughout, rather than just at the very end, to produce richer, more complex flavors. Creating a meal becomes very easy, then, when you know what foods & flavors go well together, and have a sense of at what point in a dish certain types of foods/spices/etc should be added.
Anyway, I was thinking about all that when I created this dish, which is actually three separate recipes in one, each one a little more complex and more of a meal than the last. The first layer would make a simple but delicious side dish. Add the second layer, and you’ve got a more complex (and heavier) side dish, and add the third layer and you’ve got yourself a whole meal.
Roasted Carrot-Zaatar-Quinoa Salad
Serves 2-4, depending on how much quinoa you use
Carrots: 5-6 large carrots, or some number of smaller carrots that about equals that out (I used a mixture of yellow and purple carrots from the farmers market, myself.)
1 large red onion
1 TB Zaatar
1/2 cup or so parsley, chopped
1 TB mint, chopped
1/3-1/2 cup feta, chopped or crumbled
Handful of walnuts (optional, but add nice crunch)
1/2-2/3 cup dry quinoa
Preheat oven to 400.
Peel (if you can; my carrots were too tiny to peel) and chop carrots into two-inch long pieces (halved if they are fat carrots).
Toss carrots and red onion (chopped into medium-to-large slices) with olive oil, salt, pepper and place in a large roasting pan. Roast in oven 30-40 minutes, until carrots are soft but not mushy.
While carrots are roasting, cook up some quinoa: bring one part quinoa to two parts water and salt to boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes, or until quinoa is fluffy.
When carrots/onions are done, put them in a large bowl and add one TB of zaatar. (If you don’t have any zataar, some dried thyme, oregano, and probably a little more salt make a decent compromise. A splash of lemon juice would help, too.)
On its own, this would be a perfectly delicious simple side dish:
Or, you can move on to the next layer: add 1/2 cup (or more! I say be generous with the parsley) and 1 TB of mint (or more! I only had a TB of mint in the house, but I bet a little more would taste great), plus the feta and the walnuts. Add a few squeeze of fresh lemon juice. (I ended up using the juice of half a lemon, but taste for lemon juice and salt as you go, and add more as needed.)
Toss, and that would make an excellent heavier side dish. (Which I forgot to photograph before I moved onto step three…suffice to say, it looked yummy!
For a more complete meal, add the cooked quinoa. Taste again for lemon juice, salt and pepper, and enjoy!
~Melissa
Eat Yer Vegetables 