Home, Cooking: Roasted Carrots with Tahini Sauce and My First Dukkah

It’s my first column back after a summer of travel—I’m sorry to have been derelict, but I’m not sure “buying snacks at Trader Joe’s to put in a child’s road-trip bag” counts as “home cooking”—and I’m already cheating: This is not a seasonal recipe—strictly speaking. But I’m hoping that after a summer of tomatoes and basil, some may be ready to ease into fall with this kind of root vegetable dish.

I needed to bring something vegan to a friend’s birthday party. A vegan colleague recommended a recipe for roasted carrots and tahini sauce, which she said looked nice on a platter. Reading the recipe I realized that the author recommended festooning the pile of carrots with “dukkah”—mentioned blithely, as if I’d just have that around!

Feeling unsophisticated, I found another recipe for dukkah, which is a blended condiment from Egypt that I am now going to be making for the rest of my life. It’s a mix of nuts and spices, ground up into a delicious rubble that adds crunch and savor to anything that needs it. I’ve mentioned specific nuts in the recipe here, but you can use a combination of whatever you’ve got, making dukkah one of that blessed number: a “use-it-up” destination for kitchen odds and ends, much like enchiladas and granola.

Roasted Carrots with Tahini Sauce and My First Dukkah

Adapted from Feasting at Home/The Mediterranean Dish

Ingredients

Carrots

1½ lbs carrots, peeled (thin, multicolored local carrots cut in half lengthwise would be the most beautiful, but I used regular supermarket carrots, cut on a diagonal slant into half-inch-thick coins)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon maple syrup
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper

Tahini Sauce

¼ cup thick tahini paste (stir it well first so there are no lumps)
3-4 tablespoons of water, more as needed
1 tablespoon maple syrup (start with a little less, then taste to see if it’s good)
¼ teaspoon salt, more to taste
¼ teaspoon pepper, more to taste

Dukkah

½ cup hazelnuts
3 tbsp almonds
4 tbsp white sesame seeds
3 tbsp shelled pistachios (or more almonds, or walnuts)
1 tbsp fennel seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp cayenne pepper
kosher salt

Garnish

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

Directions

Carrots first: Preheat oven to 425. Toss the carrots on a parchment-lined baking sheet, with oil, syrup, spices, and salt & pepper. Roast until tender (poke with a fork to test), 20-30 minutes.

Dukkah next, while the carrots are roasting: Toast the hazelnuts and almonds in a dry skillet over medium-high heat until browned. Spread on a plate to cool a bit. Toast the sesame seeds in the same dry skillet. Add nuts and seeds to a little food processor, along with the pistachios and all the rest of the spices. Process until it’s got a crumbly, rubbly texture—not too fine! Set aside.

Tahini sauce next, while the carrots finish up: Whisk tahini with water in a small bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients. Taste to make sure it’s right.

Assemble! Spread tahini sauce on a platter, nice and even. Heap carrots on top. Sprinkle dukkah over all (happily, you will probably have leftovers). Top everything with parsley.