Beets are now available at farmstands here in New England. Any suggestions for recipes or preparation?
Incidentally, I had beet greens for the first time this summer, I am embarassed to admit. And now I mourn all those beet-greenless summers I can never recover.
Good, aren’t they? IIRC, beets and Swiss chard are related, which accounts for the similarity in flavor between beet greens and chard.
I like to roast beets wrapped in tin foil until they’re tender, and when they’re cool enough, peel and slice them and drizzle them with olive oil. Sprinkle them with coarse salt and some sort of tangy, salty cheese like bleu, feta or goat cheese. They’re good enough to make this your whole lunch. You’ll pee pink that afternoon, though.
Like teela brown, I roast them in tinfoil with a little salt, pepper, and olive oil until they’re tender. Peel when cool, and slice.
Combine with some red wine vinegar, more olive oil, and fresh herbs - tarragon is especially good - along with some sliced red onions for a salad. Sometimes I throw orange juice in as well.
You can also peel & grate them when raw and saute with oil and whatever spices you want for a nice side dish.
Beets are great. And yes, you pee pink afterwards.
Thanks for the cooking tips.
Of course now, like a typical guy, I am wondering whether they can be frozen for a few months. Just until the first snowfall… Maybe I can combine this with what I learned in the “Monogram” Pit thread?
What?
Hee hee.
You might look around for a beet and pea salad recipe. I had a Russian friend who brought some to a potluck and I was dubious but once taste and I was a goner. It is way better than it sounds (and this version was made with canned peas! Yuck!). I see a couple on epicurious.
Here’s one that looks good!
Roasted Beet and Sugar Snap Pea Salad -
Top
From Bon Appétit, http://www.epicurious.com
Serves 4.
3 medium beets, trimmed
1/2 pound sugar snap peas, trimmed
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cider vinegar
cup olive oil
3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill or 1 tablespoon dillweed.
1-1/2 teaspoons sugar
1-1/2 ounces fresh arugula, trimmed.
Preheat oven to 375°F. Wrap beets in aluminum foil. Bake until tender, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Cool. Peel beets and cut into wedges.
Cook sugar snap peas in large saucepan of boiling salted water until crisp-tender, about 1 minute. Drain. Rinse with cold water; drain well. Pat dry.
Mix mustard and vinegar in small bowl. Gradually mix in oil, then dill and sugar. (Can be prepared 4 hours ahead. Cover sugar snap peas and chill. Cover dressing and beets separately and let stand at room temperature.)
Line platter with arugula. Mix beets, sugar snap peas and dressing in medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon atop arugula. - Updated: March 14, 2005It looks pretty tasty so far. I really expected a bigger turnout for an SDMB Beet-Off.
Shredded beets are excellent on salads or sandwiches.
About the foil-roasting thing - for an amazing treat, cut the beet in half, hollow out the middle just a little, and slide a clove of garlic in before roasting. Mmm roasted beet garlic goodness mmmmmgrgh.
Vinaigrette, which is the name of the salad Ellen Cherry mentioned is delicious.
There is another Russian dish called ‘seld’ pod shuboi’. This translates literally as ‘herring under a fur coat’. My family calls it ‘herring in a fur coat’.
Take something like a fairly shallow Pyrex dish.
Cover the bottom with pieces of herring (fresh is optimal, from a jar is ok, from a can is suboptimal - canned herring is usually mushy).
Cover the herring with a layer of finely chopped onion.
Add a layer of mayonnaise.
Cover the mayonnaise with a layer of grated carrot.
Add a layer of mayonnaise.
Cover the mayonnaise with a thick layer of grated beet.
You can also add a layer of boiled, cubed potatoes. Mix chopped egg with the potatoes if you like.
Add salt, as you layer, to your taste.
Some people add chopped or grated apple, and use oil instead of mayonnaise. Some people make the bottom layer out of potatoes.
Whatever ingredients you use, it’s a good idea to make it the night before and let it sit in the fridge overnight.
Borsch is another good dish which uses beets, but more of a winter than a summer soup. I can dig out an approximate recipe if you’re interested.
With all of these dishes, there are probably as many variations as there are cooks.
Pee is not the only output that turns pink. :eek:
Especially with beets that are on the larger side, peel, slice thickly, and microwave or parboil until a knife barely will pierce them (i.e., you want them to be about half-cooked). Then finish them up on the grill. YUM!
I posted a nice recipe for Beetroot Hummus in this earlier thread.
I love pickled beets. I also like them steamed or boiled with just a bit of butter on top.
This caused many strong discussions at the family table when I was a child. I have never cooked beets for my children and husband because I’m sure they’d all run away.
My Ukrainian former roommate’s borsch recipe is in the same thread.
I have heirloom orange and yellow beets from the farmer’s market in the fridge right now, in a nice honey/balsamic/lemon vinaigrette, with some rosemary from the planters on my back porch. Mmmmm.
If I had a bunch o’beets, I’d pickle them. Not that I dislike braised, roasted, whatever, but I luv me some pickled beets. I can eat a quart in about 2 days, then almost call a colon oncologist until I remember what I have done. I use a basic recipe, from either Betty Crocker or The Victory Garden, I forget which. I guess you would have to process the jars in a water bath if you don’t have room to refrigerate them all. And make sure the acidity is high enough to prevent tiny nasties.
Dish. Please.
There’s not much to dish, really - it’s my own personal variation on this recipe. More or less:
2 large beets, approx. 4 - 5"diameter (in this case, 1 orange one and 1 yellow one which has reddish stripes on the inside if you cross-section it - no idea what the varieties are called, but they are somewhat milder and less beety-tasting than regular red beets. But I’m sure the recipe would be fine with regular beets, too.)
1 T olive oil
3 T honey
2 T balsamic vinegar
Maybe 1 t chopped fresh rosemary
Juice and grated zest of 1 lemon
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Roast the beets in tinfoil at, oh, 400 degrees until almost tender (maybe an hour?). Combine the other ingredients in a saucepan, slice the beets, and simmer them for a few minutes in the vinaigrette until most of the liquid has evaporated. Chill and enjoy! Easy as pie.
If you eat a lot of them, it can get rather red.
Speaking from personal experience (no recipes, but I love beets…Harvard beets, pickled beets, etc.), the key thing here is do not FORGET you ate a lot of beets earlier in the day.
I did forget once, and when I urinated, I like to of had a coronary…“I’m peeing BLOOD!” :eek: :eek: :eek:
I just peel them and roast them along with the roast potatoes for a Sunday dinner; they’re great.
If you’re going to boil them, you need to leave the skins on and they need long cooking; bringing to the boils, then simmering for an hour is not too long; the skin will just scrape off easily after cooking - if you take it off beforehand, all the colour will wash out during cooking.
Well, there’s borscht – beets, onion, potatoes, cabbage, salt, pepper, dill, a little lemon juice, a lot of garlic – saute the chopped vegetables and garlic in oil, add hot chicken stock or water, boil 5 minutes, simmer for 20 (or more – you really can’t hurt it), use a stick or standing blender on the result, strain it into a glass bowl, chill overnight, serve cold with sour cream and more dill to garnish.
Or red flannel hash – beets, onions, potatoes, turnips, whatever (I tend not to use carrots and beets together, but suit yourself) boiled, drained, diced and fried lightly – then stir in some tomato paste (or ketchup) and a couple tablespoons of water, continue cooking until partly crispy. Some people add meat, usually leftover corned beef. That’s a slightly different animal, in my opinion, and when I make that, I leave out the beets.
Well, that’s the FUN of it. Just like when I spend the afternoon installing software at our biggest client, and forget that not everyone thinks of “the hospital” as a client, not a place where you go when you’re in trouble. So when I call and leave a message saying I’m going to be late because I’m stuck at the hospital all afternoon, people tend to react a bit more excited than I expected. 