Carrot hummus

This is delicious. Try it, and you may abandon the chick pea version for a while.

The recipe is a scaled-down adaptation of one by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in the Guardian. But I’ve added spices, along the lines of a carrot dip recipe of his from a couple of years ago. In other respects, his newer version appears to be an improvement, because the roasted carrots have a stronger, sweeter flavour than do the boiled ones.

4 carrots, peeled and cut into fork-sized chunks
1 clove garlic
1tbsp olive oil
Salt
1dstp tahini paste*
1tsp coriander seeds
1/2tsp caraway seeds
Cayenne pepper to taste
1tbsp orange juice

Put the carrots and garlic in an oven dish, and toss with the oil and salt. Bake, uncovered, at gas mark 6/200C, tossing the ingredients again after 20 minutes. The carrots may need longer to soften than the 30-35 minutes that Fearnley-Whittingstall specifies.

Toast the coriander and caraway over a low heat in a small saucepan. Grind in a mortar.

Slipping the garlic from its skin first, tip the contents of the oven dish into a food processor or small electric mill. Add the tahini, coriander and caraway, cayenne, and orange juice. Whizz. Add a little more juice if you need to loosen the texture.

*Apologies to those who read this recipe when I first posted it: I forgot this vital ingredient.