If you are an English person of a certain age, you will likely have an ingrained hate of beetroot, having been served ‘salads’ for tea that consisted of a few miserable lettuce leaves, hard-boiled eggs and thick slices of acrid, vinegar-soused beetroot.
Poor beetroot! And poor you. The 1970s were cruel to that root vegetable which is really delicious and sweet – its cousin, sugar beet, is still widely used to produce sugar.
Beetroot is nutritionally wonderful, and it actually gives you a natural high thanks to betaine in its content. And it can be really delicious: be it raw, cooked or even its leaves which shouldn’t land in a compost heap.
Here’s a handful of great beetroot recipes to wipe out your childhood aversion – and none with the poor things pickled in vinegar!
Creamy and garlicky, topped with Parmesan, this gratin is delightful, especially when made with rainbow beetroot which tends to be quicker to cook and tenderer.
Cooking beetroot is really easy: wash and scrub but don’t peel, wrap in foil and bake for 30-60 minutes depending on the size. And then you can prepare wonderful salads like this one, with some raw beetroot mixed in as well for extra nutritional benefit.
But you can also roast beetroot peeled and quartered, slow and low, heavily seasoned with honey, thyme and balsamic vinegar. This is delicious served with lentils or grains.
Once you bake the beetroots in foil, you can bake them again with some more crimson ingredients, figs and pomegranate. Served with soft cheese, it’s a lovely warm salad.
Twice roasted beetroot with pomegranate
RECIPE
Scandinavian style cured salmon is delicious, perfectly safe to eat as long as the salmon is fresh, and much better value than the skimpy trays of supermarket smoked salmon. Salt, sugar and beetroot turn a side of salmon into a vibrantly coloured treat.
Raw beetroot, thinly sliced, tossed with a huge pile of fresh herbs and some sharp grated cheese: so healthy! Best if you get hold of some tender varieties of beetroot, like the pretty chioggia.
Don’t discard beetroot leaves, especially new season, small and delicate ones. They can be cooked like spinach or chard, used in recipes as a straight swap. Or as a topping for a tart made with homemade or shop bought ball of pizza dough.
Swiss rösti is usually made from grated potatoes, shaped into a patty and fried. But you can make it from other root vegetables, like celeriac or indeed beetroot. Coarsely grated, well squeezed out, formed into a patty bound with egg and Parmesan, shallow fried until crispy.
Beetroot makes a very handsome loaf of proper bread, leavened by yeast and easy enough to produce within a few hours. It’s flavoured with caraway seeds and the texture is enhanced by sunflower seeds and a handful of raisins.
And finally, beetroot juice as a substitute for an exotic annatto fruit used to marinate pork in for a delicious Filipino version of bacon. Sweet tartness of beetroot as well as the crimson hue makes it possible for us in Europe to try that excellent dish without a long-haul flight.