When Rosh Hashanah rolls around, sugar, and specifically honey, often is on the menu.

It's a kind of edible prayer, a hopeful way of attracting sweet things to one's life in the year to come.

That's why this salad is based on a sweet vegetable – the carrot – and flavored with honey and dates. But you don't have to celebrate Rosh Hashanah to love this recipe. Refreshing and simple to prepare, it's a great and healthy end-of-summer treat, no matter what your faith.

Technique-wise, I borrowed a trick I learned for beets: I grate them.

For years, I hated beets. To me, they tasted like dirt. And the little devils start out hard as rocks, so hard you have to boil them for an hour before you can even think about cutting into them. One day it occurred to me that I might be able to make beets more user-friendly by running them through the grating disk of a food processor.

Much as I love my chef's knife, I am not ashamed to reach for a more complex piece of equipment if it will make life easier. So I peeled and grated some beets using the processor.

And guess how long it then took me to sauté them in a large skillet? Three minutes.

I started rummaging through the fridge and cupboard in search of additional candidates for the grater. The carrot was a natural. I grated a bunch, flavored it with hot pepper flakes and lime, then cooked it all in a large skillet coated with vegetable oil, just as I had the beets. Sure enough, 3 minutes later they were done. And delicious.

Paprika, by the way, is one of my favorite ingredients these days. In this recipe, I used a mix of hot smoked and sweet Hungarian. As for the dates, I have a couple of tricks for dealing with their annoying stickiness, which makes them a pain to chop.

If you spritz your knife with cooking spray before you start, you shouldn't have any trouble.

And when it comes time to mix the finished salad, use your impeccably clean hands, rather than salad spoons, to make sure the dates are happily dispersed throughout the salad rather than clumped together in a sullen bunch.

Grated carrot salad with dates and pistachios

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time (for cumin seeds): 4 minutes

Serves 6

You don't have to celebrate Rosh Hashanah to love this recipe. Refreshing and simple to prepare, it's a great and healthy end- of-summer treat no matter what your faith.

Recipe from chef and cookbook writer Sara Moulton. She advises spritzing your knife with cooking spray before you begin chopping the dates to avoid stickiness.

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds

1 teaspoon paprika, sweet, hot or smoked, or a combination

1 teaspoon honey

1 pound carrots

1/4 cup chopped pitted dates (about 4 whole)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/3 cup shelled natural pistachios, walnuts or almonds, chopped

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon shredded fresh mint

INSTRUCTIONS

In a small skillet over medium-low, heat the oil. Add the cumin seeds and cook, swirling the pan occasionally, until they turn a shade darker and become fragrant, about 4 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the paprika and the honey.

Let the mixture cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, coarsely grate the carrots, preferably using the coarse grating disk on a food processor. In a large bowl, toss the carrots with the cooled oil-cumin mixture, the dates, lemon juice, pistachios and salt, using your hands to incorporate the dates.

Stir in the mint just before serving.

Per serving: 180 calories; 90 calories from fat (50 percent of total calories); 10 g fat (1.5 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 0 mg cholesterol; 21 g carbohydrate; 3 g protein; 4 g fiber; 220 mg sodium.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

• Read more articles by Sara Moulton

Order Reprint