Carrot, crispy olive and pistachio salad
A brand new goes-with-everything winter salad + a Christmas salad hall of fame + a few choice gifts I'll be buying
Hi, I’m Anna Jones and welcome to my newsletter. It’s great to have you here. If you have found yourself here but are not yet subscribed then you can sort that out below….
This week’s newsletter is a brand new salad recipe, Carrot, crispy olive and pistachio salad along with a collection of all my favourite winter/Christmas salad recipes. My winter salad hall of fame.
May we even mention Christmas? Feels a bit early perhaps. If my mentioning Christmas in November is annoying to you please just skip to the recipe(s) - which is a truly excellent recipe for any time of year.
If you are still with me I want to make a case for salads in Winter and especially at Christmas. We all have our treasured foods which mean Christmas to us.
Mince pies, roast potatoes, red cabbage, sprouts, bread sauce. But I would guess not many of you would choose a salad. To me, a salad is perhaps the most important part of all my Christmas meals, from our actual Christmas lunch to the many, many other celebratory meals we’ll eat this December.
A salad brings brightness, crunch, and some freshness to an otherwise root veg and carb heavy time of year. Please don’t misunderstand this as an attempt to ask you to get vitamins in at Christmas, this comes very much from the cooking part of my brain, which knows no plate of food is complete without a fresh and bright element.
Last year I wrote this about the actual sides on my Christmas table and it’s relevant here;
Each side has to fulfil its purpose. Sides fit into roughly into three camps. Crunchy and crispy - roast potatoes, roast parsnips, anything golden and crisp. Creamy and generous - mashed potato, gratins, cauliflower cheese. And fresh and bright - red cabbage, sautéed sprouts, radicchio salad, Christmas slaw.
Side nirvana comes when you pick one side from each of these camps. Usually, I also add something raw like salad or slaw. Three or four sides is the sweet spot. Any more will be hard to juggle for whoever is cooking, any less and it’s just not Christmas dinner. Choose, then do three things with care and attention - way better than five average sides.
This carrot salad is loosely inspired by one I ate at Henri restaurant in Covent Garden, a place I love for a lot of reasons but their carrot rappe salad is probably number one. It was made for me by Jackson Boxer and it was a thing of perfect simplicity. (Side note: the team from Henri have the most kitsch and OTT Christmas bar open next door. Looks fun.)
I know this salad is going to become one of the winter recipes I make again and again. The Henri’s carrot salad is a take on a classic rappe. Jackson puts black olives in his to add some punch. Mine has olives too, as well as a dressing that’s creamy from tahini and a very easy pistachio maple spice crunch which sparkles in a way that makes me think of decorating the Christmas tree.
If you think a carrot salad sounds boring, can I convince you to try this carrot salad? It would sit on your Boxing Day table instead of a slaw, it would be perfect with leftovers, in sandwiches, and I would even have it on the side on the day itself.
As well as this brand new, free for all recipe, I’ve picked out my favourite ever winter salads which I think work for this time of year. All beloved in my house and made many, many times. If you make them do let me know, it thrills me.
All my winter salads:
Winter slaw - this is a Boxing Day salad to eat with cold cuts and cheeses.
Winter Panzanella - a winter version of my all-time favourite salad.
Winter chopped salad - a salad that brings some colour and brightness and is even better the next day.
Carrot and mustard salad - brightness + crunch for darker days.
Winter citrus salad - a salad of sharp-sweet oranges and crisp bitter lettuces. Perfect with leftovers or as a starter to the main event.
Burrata with lemon, chilli and thyme - an assembly of some really good things with unexpected flavours to serve up with drinks.
Gifts I am buying - Part II
I know there are an overwhelming amount of these around so I’ve kept it brief this year, but I know a lot of you like our guides. This week some things that do good and food + hampers.
I am so pleased to know that you find these guides useful. Let me know if you’ve ever shopped from my guide in the comments, I love to hear it.
Food + Hampers
Violet bakery’s Christmas box
Three of the very best spices
Honey + Co Christmas treats hamper
A winning pair of salty flavour boosters
Six whole months of the best olive oil
Pump Street’s winter chocolate tasting box
A box of the leafy clementines
A bottle of natural wine each month
Doing some good
Fruit + veg Christmas cards
Dove peace decorations for Doctors without Boarders
The Landworker’s Alliance calendar
Glass bead necklaces for Palestine
We Cook Plants, raising funds for Made in Hackney
Carrot, crispy olive and pistachio salad
I usually grate all the carrots here but on occasion I will chop a few into thin coins as well as I did here. I used some fancy yellow and purple carrots here as they were in my local shop but please do not feel any need to do that.
I like to taste the dressing with a little bit of carrot to check it’s right, it will taste much more like the end result if you taste it on the actual vegetable rather than on the end of a spoon.
Serves 6
600g of carrots, peeled and grated
50g of shelled pistachios, roughly chopped
½ teaspoon of fennel seeds, bashed in a pestle & mortar
½ teaspoon coriander seeds, bashed in a pestle & mortar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
75g Kalamata olives, destoned and roughly chopped
Olive oil
A small bunch parsley, chopped
For the dressing
Juice of a lemon
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
4 tablespoons tahini
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
Toast the nuts and spices
Bash ½ teaspoon fennel seeds and ½ teaspoon coriander seeds in a pestle & mortar until they have broken down a bit but not to a powder. Heat a a frying pan then toast the spices and 50g chopped pistachios until they smell great and the pistachios have browned a little - this will take a few minutes. Remove pan from the heat, add 1 tablespoon maple syrup and stir round the pan. Remove from the pan and set aside to cool down.
Fry the olives
Destone and chop the 75g Kalamata olives, put the frying pan back on the heat and add a teaspoon of olive oil and fry the olives for a couple of minutes until they are beginning to crisp.
Prep the carrots
Peel and grate half of the carrots (chopping some in thin rounds if you like). Roughly chop the bunch of parsley and pile into a large mixing bowl.
Make the dressing
Squeeze the juice of the lemon into a jam jar with a lid, then add two tablespoons sherry vinegar, four tablespoons tahini, a tablespoon maple syrup and a teaspoon mustard. Then add a big pinch of sea salt salt and some freshly ground black pepper and shake to mix the dressing.
Dress the salad
Dress the carrots and parsley with the dressing, tossing to make sure everything is coated then pile it onto a large serving bowl and top with the crispy olives and spiced pistachios.
Make ahead/storage/leftovers
The carrots, pistachios, olives and dressing can all be made ahead and kept in a kit form then put together at the last minute. If you are doing this keep the carrots and dressing in the fridge but the olives and pistachios at room temp. Leftovers will keep for up to 4 days in the fridge, its a salad that is very good the next day.
Can I please ask that if you like this week’s recipe, Christmas guide and words, that you add a like or comment below and perhaps share it with someone who might also like it, its free for everyone this week but a lot of time and love have gone into it. Thank you.
My cookbooks (there are five) are available here. The latest is Easy Wins, a Sunday Times bestseller. There are also hundreds of free recipes on my website which you can find here. They would not make a terrible Christmas present, just saying.
Omg this looks amazing
Hi Anna, thanks for the recipe. I’m intrigued as to what else you ate at Henri as a vegetarian? French can be tricky!