A dish of carrots roasted with cumin and served with feta is a great favourite but I wanted a roasted carrot salad to take to a party. I had been trying out carrot salads during the summer but none quite hit the mark. However, I found references to Yotam Ottolenghi’s salad and, no wonder. Restrained by his standards, it is a classic and rightly so.

I used twice as much coriander as YO and a little lemon juice. I also roasted a handful of cashew nuts with the carrots for the last five minutes of cooking to give crunch.

300g cherry tomatoes, halved
Olive oil
1 tsp soft brown sugar
1 tsp cumin seeds
2cm cube fresh ginger peeled and finely grated
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
600g carrots, – either baby carrots cut in half or quarter lengthways or regular carrots cut into generous batons
40g quinoa, preferably red
20g or more coriander leaves chopped
10g mint leaves, picked
Lemon juice (optional)

Oven at 150°C

Put the tomatoes in a bowl with a few spoons of olive oil, the ginger, sugar, a generous pinch of salt and good grind of black pepper. Mix to coat the tomatoes and then spread them out in a baking dish, cut side up, and roast for an hour or until the tomatoes are semi-dried and caramelised. Leave to cool.

Turn up the oven to 200°C. In a bowl mix the carrots with the cumin, a good pinch of salt, a generous amount of black pepper and two tablespoons of olive oil. Spread out in a baking dish and roast for 20-25 minutes, until the carrots have browned. Leave to cool

Cook the quinoa in a small pan of boiling water for 10 minutes, until just done. Drain.

To serve, mix the tomatoes, carrots, quinoa, coriander and mint in a large shallow bowl. Taste (you may choose to add a little lemon juice) and drizzle over some olive oil if you wish.