Spiced carrot and lamb salad

I can't claim credit for this one - it's pinched from the Sainted Jamie, who I saw extolling the virtues of carrots on his Jamie at Home programme.

Sadly, I didn't have the delightful purple/white/yellow varieties of carrots to play with (the allotment doesn't seem to like carrots very much), so my version didn't look quite so pretty as the original salad.

Makes enough for 3 greedy people. You'll need:

400g lamb mince
1 1/2 heaped teaspoons garam masala
3 or 4 large carrots, peeled
1 large teaspoon sesame seeds
lots of fresh mint leaves, shredded
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 large spring onion, finely chopped
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 teaspoon ginger (freshly grated or powder)
lots of olive oil

Tip the lamb mince into a large pan, and fry until the fat comes out. Add the garam masala, and then cook the mince until crispy.

In the meantime, make your carrot salad and dressing. You'll need to peel the carrots to get rid of the outer skin - then just keep peeling, so you get lots of very thin strips. Shove these in a bowl.

To make the dressing, toast the cumin seeds in a dry frying pan for about 30 seconds. Stick in a pestle and mortar, and grind up. Tip into a bowl, add the finely chopped spring onion, lemon zest, lemon juice, ginger and a pinch of salt. Pour in 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil, mix well, and have a taste. If it's too lemony, add a little more oil.

Toast the sesame seeds in the dry frying pan too, until they go golden (should take a minute or so).

To assemble, tip the dressing over the carrots, and add the shredded mint (Jamie also suggests coriander as well, which I think would make things even better). Mix well. Decant onto plates, add the lamb mince, and then sprinkle the sesame seeds on top.

This goes well with bread (we only had baguette, but naan bread would be better), and aubergine or lime pickle.