GreenFish wrote:
I wanted to offer my feedback on making LAZ's Sweet Moroccan Carrot Slaw.
First of all, I'm going to admit something extremely embarrassing. I've never used a food processor before. I've owned one for about three years, maybe (thank you, after-Thanksgiving sales), but have never, ever used it. I don't cook as much as I should, and when I do cook, my recipes are generally very simple and very well-traveled.
When the time came to try and figure out how to use it for this salad -- well, let's just say I wasted a lot of carrots trying to get the method down. Then I wasn't exactly sure I had the texture of the carrots right. I thought maybe the carrots were supposed to be cut a little thicker, but I couldn't figure out how my food processor could DO that. (A mandolin slicer, maybe, but I don't have one of those, and, well, the recipe didn't call for that.) My husband came home to me venting my frustrations and explained that I was doing it right and that the texture of the carrots was perfect for the slaw.
Well, after I figured that out, everything else was a breeze.
LAZ was definitely right -- it's very quick if you use a food processor.
The texture was fine. I usually use either the regular shredding blade or the fine shredder for this salad. If you want to do a different cuts in your food processor, depending on what kind it is, you can buy additional blades. Besides the regular shredding blade that came with mine, I have a julienne blade, a french-fry cutter and a fine shredder.
I can't imagine being without my Cuisinart. I adore it. I just put all the parts on the top rack of the dishwasher to clean it.
By the way, the secret to getting the most out of a food processor is to keep it out on the counter. People who keep them stored away hardly ever use them. If I have to chop one onion, I probably will just use a knife, but if I have to chop two, I use the food processor.
GreenFish wrote:
The dressing is so ridiculously simple, and I added a little bit of fresh grated ginger (another cooking first!) to the dressing -- don't know if you caught that zest in there. Then, yes, I substituted the pine nuts for slivered almonds, which I also prefer. The leaf lettuce really does give the bowl a nice garnish -- it would have looked rather plain without it. Oh, and no one at Jewel had ever heard of orange flower water (~sigh~) so I left it out. I probably could have gone to Williams-Sonoma or something, but as I am a last-minute person, there wasn't enough time for that.
I did notice that you'd used the suggested variations. I don't think that I'd use both orange-flower water and ginger, anyway, because the ginger would overpower the orange-flower water. Cynthia is right about where to get that -- anywhere with a good stock of Middle Eastern supplies should have it. Also, I know that Treasure Island stocks it. You also sometimes see it at better liquor stores.
By the way, fresh ginger can be stored indefinitely, tightly wrapped, in the freezer. Just grate off what you need while it's still frozen and return the rest to the freezer.
GreenFish wrote:
I also actually ended up making the Derby Day salad for a party the day before, since I'd bought half the ingredients before I found out someone had already claimed it. That was fairly simple, overall as well -- the most complicated thing being the pecans you had to candy, which wasn't complicated at all. (Also: I noted that they didn't taste as "candied" as I had expected, either, but I liked that.)
There's a more conventional candied pecan recipe
here, but I think those are too sweet for salad. Maybe I should call my version "sugar-toasted" or something like that.
GreenFish wrote:
Oh: also, another strike against Jewel? The people in the produce told me that Bibb Lettuce and iceburg lettuce were the same thing. Um -- what? I was skeptical, but two people told me this. Yes, you were BOTH wrong.
They might know it as "Boston" lettuce, which is a slightly larger version of "butterhead" lettuce (the generic term for lettuces of that type).
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