Happy late Halloween! last night I prepared a mung bean-carrot-feta cheese salad for a big dinner party. the dish was a success, but most importantly a lot of the prepping time was focused on the dressing up part. My mom picked up some weird and disgusting looking pimples and marks to put on your face. She also had a fake syringe put on her head. And I improvised some black make up too. It’s seems like the last time I dressed up like that was about 10 years ago, Hahaha! It was real fun, also to see the people’s reactions outside on the streets.
Back to the dish, it was inspired by my beloved Ottolenghi chef. I love his israeli roots and his use of tons of herbs in his recipes.
We had leftovers today and was still very good. The dish was a success.

Ingredients:
-500 gr mung beans
-10 carrots
-1 garlic clove
-2 packs of feta cheese
-1 tbls of fennel seeds
-1 tbls cumin seeds-1 tsp red pepper flakes
-3 tbls extra virgin olive oil
-1 bunch of fresh coriander
-1 bunch of fresh mint
-juice of 1/2 lemon
Preheat oven to 220 ° celsius.
Soak the beans for 4 hours. Drain, rinse and boil for 20-30 minutes until they are cooked but still retain a bite. Drain and set aside.
In the meantime peel the carrots, chop lengthwise and then again to make thin sticks (like in the picture). Put in a pan with 1 glass of water, 1 tbls of olive oil and some corse salt. Cook in the oven until crunchy, about 20-30 minutes, and drain any excess water.
In a pan toast the spices for 5 minutes, I like to crunch mine before a bit in a mortar so more flavor comes out. Add 2 tbls olive oil, the red pepper flakes and the garlic clove, minced, and saute for another 5 minutes.
Wash the herbs and chop finely. Cut the feta cheese into small cubes.
Mix together the carrots sticks, mung beans, spices, herbs, feta and lemon juice. Taste and add more olive oil and salt if needed.