Colourful carrots

Working with The University of Sheffield

Colourful carrots

Season: AutumnWinter

It’s easy to take ever-versatile carrots for granted, but when the purple and yellow carrots start alternating with their orange cousins in the veg box it’s a reminder to give them star billing on the plate. Who better to elevate humble carrots than Ottolenghi… (from ‘Plenty More’): Carrots roasted with honey, coriander, cumin and thyme, and served with a tahini yogurt sauce. Easily veganised with maple or date syrup for the honey, and soy yogurt. Double the quantities if you have a carrot backlog! The tahini sauce, if you have extra, is also really nice drizzled over stir-fried kale or shredded cabbage.

Organic Chestnuts – special of the season we have French Organic chestnuts available for their short season at £2.80 for 200g. The variety is “Bouche De Betizac” has good flavour and large chestnuts. We import them from France because it’s so hard to find them in Britain as they’re not considered commercially viable.

COP26 – Follow our social media posts where, over the coming weeks we’ll be exploring how Regather is working towards COP26’s four goals on a local level: Securing global net zero, Adapting to protect communities and natural habitats, Mobilising finance and Working together. We’re putting a COP26 leaflet (produced by the CSA and Landworkers Alliance) in your box this week, and there’s a protest planning for Sheffield for Saturday 6^th November.

Global Produce – Our buying policy rejects air freight and aims to buy as much produce from the local area, and then the UK as is possible. Year round though we have to buy fruit from abroad. Our main fruit wholesaler is suffering hold-ups in produce coming from Spain at the moment, partly to do with a reduced number of drivers bringing produce to the UK, and partly delays borne of paperwork issues. Today, our clementine and avocado order didn’t arrive in time – we’ve received South African Oranges and Italian Kiwi instead. We’ll always prioritise the EU / UK fruit, and will continue to work with our suppliers to get back to fully EU fruit boxes again.

Ingredients

600g carrots (ideally different colours)

30g clear honey (about 1.5 tbsp)

½ tbsp coriander seeds, toasted and lightly crushed

¾ tsp cumin seeds, toasted and lightly crushed

2 small thyme sprigs

1 tbsp coriander leaves, roughly chopped (optional)

Salt and black pepper

Tahini yogurt sauce (this will make more than you need for 500/600g carrots):

40g tahini paste

130g Greek yogurt

2 tbsp lemon juice

small garlic clove, crushed

Method

Wash and gently scrub the carrots and cut into 2cm x 6cm batons.

Preheat oven to 220C/Gas 7.

Place all ingredients for the tahini sauce in a medium bowl with a pinch of salt. Whisk and set aside.

Place the honey, oil, coriander and cumin seeds and thyme in a large mixing bowl with 1 tsp of salt and a good grind of black pepper.

Add the carrots and mix well until coated then spread them out on a large baking tray and roast in the oven for 40 mins, stirring gently once or twice, until cooked through and glazed.

Transfer the carrots to a large serving platter or individual plates. Serve warm or at room temperature with a spoonful of sauce on top, scattered with the coriander leaves.