A Recipe from Rebecca: Roasted Carrot and Garlic Dip | Canalside Community Food

‘This is delicious’, said a guest as we sampled Matt’s signature dirty martini a few weeks ago. ‘It is good, isn’t it?’, I replied. ‘No, I mean the dip’, he explained. It is good (and so were the martinis).

Roasted Carrot and Garlic Dip with Seed Dukkah

Serves 4-6 as a pre-dinner nibble.

Ingredients

For the Dip
500g carrots, unpeeled but cut into 2cm chunks
1 dried Canalside chile pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil + 1 more tablespoon olive oil (3 tablespoons total)
¾ teaspoon salt
1 whole head of garlic, left whole but with the top sliced off horizontally so you can see the actual garlic cloves
1½ tablespoons cashew or almond butter
1 lime, juiced (about 2 tablespoons)

For the Dukkah
1 tablespoon pumpkin seeds
1 tablespoon sunflower seeds
½ tablespoon cumin seeds
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon ufea chile flakes or any other mild chile flakes

Method

For the Dip: Heat the oven to the maximum setting (240C/220C fan). Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Toss the carrots and chile pepper with 2 tablespoons olive oil and the salt. Spread on the baking tray.

Wrap the whole head of garlic in some foil and put that on the baking tray, too.

Put the baking tray in the oven and roast for 15 minutes. Remove the chile (set it aside), give the carrots and garlic a stir, and continue roasting them for another 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool a bit.

Once it is cool, unwrap the garlic and squeeze out the roasted garlic cloves into a small bowl.

Put the roasted garlic, carrots, chile, nut butter, and half the lime juice in a blender or food processer, and pulse until the mixture is coarsely blended. Season to taste with more salt or lime juice.

Transfer the dip to an attractive serving bowl and drizzle with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil and the remaining lime juice. Sprinkle with the dukkah (see below) and serve with something to dip into the dip. Sourdough crackers are good.

For the Dukkah: Heat a small, dry (i.e. no added oil) frying pan over medium heat. Add the seeds and stir, until everything seems a bit toasted. Let them cool a bit and then transfer them to a mortar along with the remaining ingredients. Bash them a bit until they are coarsely broken up.

Recipe adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi, Guardian, 26 June 2021