As I child I was only exposed to beetroot as a traditional element in a salad. A child is more sensitive to strong tastes so it is not surprising I did not like everything but I dreaded salad. Lettuce and cucumber were OK but I did not like the runny insides of tomatoes (different these days), beetroot or hardboiled eggs. I only started to enjoy salads in my mid teens on holidays on the continent when I first had dressed salads. The vinagrette made all the difference.
I have been concerned that we do not have enough proficiency in cooking seasonal roots so this year bought some beetroot seed to raise the bar a bit. I had not realised that chards are in the beetroot family until recently; the goal is to harvest the leaves rather than the root. However have quite enjoyed young beetroot leaves in salads. The photo below shows some of our beetroots (complete with weeds) that have survived ill-treatment by blackbirds!
Mrs O often served beetroot hot with bacon and spuds when we lived in Germany. That was the first time I really enjoyed beetroot. I have noticed that some modern food writers such as Anton Mosimann have used raw beetroot in recipes. Often raw beetroot is hard to find with only cooked available. However I have experimented with raw beetroot.
A month or so ago I was doing a hot steak salad roughly along the lines of a venison salad I have posted. This time we had both sweet potato and raw beetroot in our cupboard. I sliced both into sticks using a mandolin and fried them. One of my boys said he enjoyed the "taste explosion" which pleased me but was a bit more dramatic than I would have described it. Still it's an encouragement to explore further.
As somebody who has too high blood pressure I was pleased to read that beetroot juice helps. I have been buying beetroot juice for a while but have not yet measured if it helps.
I have thought for a while that beetroot would also make a good pakora. My google searches indicate that this is nothing new but I will share my experience anyway. I started with cooked beetroot as I am not sufficiently experienced in cooking from raw and wanted to be sure that the pakora was sufficiently cooked.
Ingredients
250 g cooked beetroot
125 g onion
1 tsp chilli powder
salt
gram flour
beetroot juice
half tsp baking powder
Method
1. Dice the beetroot into roughly half centimetre cubes.
2. Roughly chop the onion (roughly half a large onion)
3. Add salt and leave for about 15-20 min
4. Add gram flour, baking powder and beetroot juice and mix until there is a pasty consistency
5. Deep fry at 170 Celsius
6. Serve with lemon and a yogurt-based sauce (e.g. chilli/tomato ketchup or turmeric/mint)
I liked both the taste and the vibrant colour
Great idea. I never would ahve thought to prepare beet root this way. Thanks!