Harissa Carrots with Yoghurt
Carrots blistered until their sugars catch, dropped straight onto cold garlic yoghurt so the two meet halfway.
Why it works
Halving carrots lengthways gives you a flat face that sits against the hot basket floor and browns properly, and that browning is where the sweetness comes from. The harissa goes on as a thin film rather than a spoonful of sauce, so it dries onto the surface and toasts with the caraway instead of steaming the carrots soft.
Method
- Heat the air fryer to 200°C (400°F). Toss the carrots in a bowl with the harissa, oil, caraway and salt until they are evenly streaked red.
- Lay them cut side down in the basket, splitting them into two batches if they overlap badly. Air fry for 10 minutes, turning them at 6.
- While the basket runs, stir the yoghurt, garlic, a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of salt together in the same bowl the carrots came out of, and spread it over a platter.
- The carrots are ready when the cut faces are dark brown in patches and a knife tip slides in with almost no push. Pile them onto the yoghurt, scatter over the herbs and squeeze on the rest of the lemon.
For the toddler
Pull two carrot halves out of the bowl at step 1, before the harissa, salt and caraway go in, and toss them with a little oil alone. They cook on the same timer. Spoon them a little plain yoghurt with no garlic or salt stirred in, and a squeeze of lemon. Cut the carrots the long way into soft finger-length strips rather than coins.
How the toddler notes workChef’s notes
Parsnips, sweet potato wedges or thick batons of squash take the same treatment; parsnips want two minutes less.
Use whole small carrots and skip the halving. They need 12 minutes rather than 10, but you save all the knife work.
Lamb chops, merguez sausages, or a lentil and tomato stew that wants something sweet next to it.
Keeps 3 days chilled. Chop them cold into a grain salad, or blitz with stock into a quick soup.