Roasted Carrots with Citrus Mojo (vegan)

Oven roasted carrots in a citrus glaze

Roasted Carrots with Citrus Mojo (vegan)

​In the Caribbean, a citrus sauce, or mojo, is used on a lot of vegetables and meats. Plantain is traditional at Christmas, in a citrus mojo. When making up my Christmas in the Caribbean menu, I couldn't easily get plantain in Manchester and thought to try using carrots instead, which are of course traditional in UK at Christmas anyway. Cultural mixing, especially in food, is something I'm very much in favour of.

The flavours of orange and carrot match so well. In the Caribbean you would use sour oranges, similar to Seville oranges, which are ripe at Christmas to make the mojo sauce for these carrots. If you can get Seville oranges, use those, but if you can’t, just use normal sweet oranges and add some lemon and lime juices to the mix.

Roasted carrots have that lovely slightly burned edge and texture which you don’t get by boiling them, and of course the tray of carrots can go in the oven alongside whatever else you’re cooking for an easy side dish to your roast. Carrots are very tolerant things and you can peel and chop them ahead of time – even the day before you cook if you keep them in a plastic bag in the vegetable drawer of the fridge and also make the mojo ahead of time so you can throw it all together as you need.

The only caution I would give is that the carrots cook down to a much smaller portion than you think, so if you have hungry big eaters in your family, add a few more carrots to your bowl!

Serves 8 as a side dish                    Timings:               90 minutes from scratch but preparation can be done ahead

• 1kg carrots
  
• 1 large onion
  
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and squashed with salt
  
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
  
• 150ml orange juice
  
• 75ml lime juice
  
• 75ml lemon juice
  
• Peel the carrots and cut them into batons, about chip sized. Par boil them for 5 minutes in plain water, then drain.

Make the mojo sauce by blending the onion, garlic, spices and juices together until you have a creamy sauce. Mix this with the carrots and spread them out on a metal baking tray. Drizzle lightly with vegetable oil.

Pre heat the oven to 180°C.

Roast the carrots for 30 minutes, then turn up the temperature to 200°C and roast for another 40 minutes. You need to stir them and turn them every now and then to make sure they roast evenly.
Serve them as a side dish to your delicious slow roast jerk pork or to to any other roast meal.