Try some fresh beetroot as a salad vegetable

Press, 29 January 1986, Page 13

Try some fresh beetroot as a salad vegetable

Alison Hoist’s

Food Facts , L. dl

If you want to bottle beetroot you have to preserve them in a very vinegary mixture or they spoil.

The liquid can be sweet or not — usually quite a lot of sugar is added so that, when the bottles are opened, no further seasoning is necessary. The resulting beets are pickled — they are “sweet and sour.”

We are so used to having beetroot like this that we sometimes forget that they can be used freshly cooked, as a salad vegetable without the addition of these larger amounts of vinegar and sugar. To cook beetroot, cut away the leaves using the 2cm of stems above the bulbous root. Do not cut off the long thin root either.

Cover the scrubbed beets with water and simmer them until they feel tender in the centre when pierced with a skewer or sharp knife. Young tender beet may be cooked in 15 minutes, but larger more mature beet, cooked later in the season, may take up to an hour.

.Drain off the hot water, replace it with cold, then squeeze the beets to free them from their skins.

Bottling beetroot

To bottle the beet, weigh them after this preparation. About 500 g of cooked sliced beetroot will fit in a 1 litre (large) preserving jar. For each jar measure 1 cup malt vinegar, y 2 cup water, J - y 2 cup sugar,’ 1 >/ 2 tsp salt into a large saucepan. Add a bayleaf and a few cloves if you like. Slice the prepared beetroot into the saucepan with the vinegar mixture. Bring to the boil then ladle into a cleaned heated preserving jar. Fill to overflowing, top with a

preboiled seal, then screw the band on tightly. For bottling, do not depart from this procedure. If you use less vinegar or more water or slice the beetroot directly into the jar, your bottled beetroots may spoil, with the lids lifting after a few weeks. Salad beetroot Boiled beetroots spoil readily in warm weather. Peel and refrigerate them in plastic bags until you need them for your salad. The salads are best prepared about an hour before they are to be eaten. Because of their intense colour, beetroot will colour other salad ingredients. You cannot avoid this, but you can sprinkle a garnish on your beetroot salad just before serving it if you want colour contrast. If you keep the main salad ingredients separate you will not get such a good blend of flavours and texture.

Mix the dressing in a smallish, screw-top jar or in a food processor. Combine the wine vinegar, the salad oil of your choice, the mustard (mixed or dry) and the finely sliced spring onions. Add salt and sugar, and freshly ground pepper to taste. If you like and use anchovy fillets or paste, add some before you add the salt. I like one large

or two smaller fillets. They give the dressing a delicious tang, but don’t really make It taste fishy.

You need to add more seasoning to the dressing if you use it sparingly. I don’t use much because I don’t like puddles of red liquid running all over our plates. ’ Don’t leave the beetroot in rings for fresh beetroot salads. You get a better flavour if you cut the beetroot in small cubes or in matchstick strips before dressing it Try beetroot alone with this dressing — or make combination salads, mixing the cubed beetroot with equal quantity of waxy cooked potato, or cubed unpeeled apple or celery. In cooler weather you can add slices of witloof endive (cigar shaped and creamy white — not green, or it will be bitter). Finely chopped, hardboiled egg and parsley make good garnishes. Add these just before serving.

Beetroot salads don’t look good on the same plate with tomato and carrot salads. Save these for other occasions.