Carrot Salad with Thai seasoning

This is a salad we had for lunch one day at the Tahere Retreat after the boys had dutifully peeled and grated a whole sack of carrots. It's crunchy, colourful and very tasty with those great sour thai flavours mingling beautifully with the sweet carrot. I found it rifling through Stephanie Alexanders book The Cooks Companian (which I often do) and I'll give you the recipe exactly as it appears there. From memory though I didn't put chilli in, used plenty of both lemon and lime juice and had no lemon grass to use, and I was probably very liberal with the ginger (take the time to chop fresh ginger up nice and finely) which I think worked really well. For Brenda x

2 cups finely grated carrot
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 fresh chilli, seeded and finely chopped
3 cm piece ginger, finely chopped
1 tsp brown sugar
1 stalk lemongrass
juice of 3 limes or 1 lemon
2 tsp fish sauce
2 tbsp freshly torn coriander leaves and finely chopped stems
2 tbsp roughly chopped raw peanuts

Mix ingredients well and leave to marinate for several hours in the refrigerator. This salad is excellent as a bed for yabbies or bbq prawns and can also be part of a series of salads. Serve at room temperature.