Carrot greens are weirdly good: limey, spicy carrot green paste

I seem to be on a strange kick of eating things I never realised could be eaten - radish greens, banana skins, now carrot greens. We had our first bunch of fresh, new-season carrots today, with resplendent, fern-like greens. As soon as I saw the greens waving at me over the side of the CSA box I wanted to do something with them. Some kind of pesto was my first thought, following the radish green pesto's success. But with it being so hot and intense I kind of fancied something fresher, with more of a kick. Then I met this recipe and it seemed to be exactly what I was thinking of, especially since we had a bunch of coriander and some nice garlic scapes in that CSA box too.

Greens from 1 bunch of carrots
small bunch of coriander
2 good-sized garlic scapes, roughly chopped*
juice of 1 lime
1 green chilli, trimmed, deseeded and chopped in two
2-3 tbsp walnut oil
1 tsp soy sauce
1/4 tsp sea salt

Wash the carrot greens and pluck all the little frondy bits, discarding the stems as they are too fibrous for this. Pack the fronds into a blender cup, along with the coriander leaves, garlic scapes, lime juice, chilli, walnut oil and soy sauce. Blend until fairly smooth. Do your best to blend quite thoroughly, as the fibrous greens take a bit of breaking down. Add salt to taste.


This, like the brown pasta, was weirdly good. Seriously. Although there was a bit of a fibrous clout coming from the carrot greens, the taste was spot on: the greens had an interesting carroty taste while also coming through as green and herby, and with the lime and slight chilli kick it was really fresh and tasty. And beautifully green to look at. Could imagine eating it on just about anything. We started by mixing some into the brown pasta with peas and tempeh we made at the same time, and that was excellent.

*use a smaller quantity of regular garlic if scapes aren't around.