Carrot Pancakes with Houmous and a Feta Salad (Maria Elia)

Last weekend was another weekend filled with trying out new recipes. Maria Elia's Carrot Pancakes with Houmous and a Feta Salad looked ideal for lunch in front of the Bahrain Grand Prix.

I wasn't keen on the idea of the orange in the watercress and feta salad. Fruit in salad (apart from my mum's grapefruit, chickpea and watercress salad) is not my thing. In fact I'd made the salad and was dishing up when I decided that if I was following a recipe then I really should trust the person who wrote it...so the orange went in at the last minute, and am I glad it did! It lifted the whole dish and really wouldn't have worked without it. Although the recipe looks like it has lots of steps it not that complicated really. The flavours work brilliantly - earthy roasted carrot in the houmous, light spices in the 'pancakes' and the zing of the orange with the peppery watercress in the salad.

I'll make it again, but the carrot pancake batter needs to be lighter. I'll work on that (like I've been working on my vegetable bhajis ever since my mum recited her 'estimated' recipe over the phone to me sometime last year) and some days I might manage it and others...maybe not.

Just leave the feta out of the salad to make this vegan.