Lemon Ensalá

One of my favorites salads in my grandma home, is not a typical salad as many we know, it is a salad that we have to eat with a spoon. This salad comes from the part of Spain where my grandparents were born, Castilla-La Mancha. The cooking of this region of Spain is pretty much inspired by the book of Don Quijote de la Mancha. I grow up with many of these recipes as gachas, migas…

 Ingredients:

-3 Big Lemons.

-2 Carrots. (this is a variation of my grandma,  in the original recipe it used to be an orange or boiled eggs).

-3 Medium Scallions.

-4 Green Onions.

-A teaspoon of Cumin seeds.

-½ Cup of Spanish Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

-2 teaspoons of Sweet Paprika.

-Salt.

-Cold Water.

Chop the scallions and the green onions fine and place them in a bowl. Peel the lemons and squeeze them (remove the seeds if necessary) over the scallions and the green onions. Cut the lemons in bite sizes, peel and slice the carrots too and add both of them to the bowl.

In a mortar, pour a teaspoon of cumin seeds and a pinch of salt and mush them up, add the paprika and mix and last the Olive oil and stir them up. Pour the mix in the bowl along with the water (the water is to your taste, depends on if you want the salad more liquid or not). Add salt if it is necessary.

This salad is going to be a CLASSIC OF THE SUMMER!!