Had we but beetroot enough, and thyme...

[shewhomust]

I bought two pounds of beetroot at the farmers' market ten days ago, and the last of it went into last night's salad: sliced cooked beetroot, shredded red radiccio, an orange, an avocado which defied all precedent by being as ripe and ready to eat as it said on the packet, and a walnut oil and lemon juice vinaigrette. I like the bitterness of radiccio, and its firm crunchiness, but it needs to be tempered with richness and moisture if the resultant salad isn't to be dry - this mix worked well.

The beetroot were smaller than usual: the nice vegetable growers are very helpful about picking through the box looking for the size you want, but the smallest are usually nearly the size of tennis balls. These were golf balls if not ping-pong, and they had a lovely purple sheen - which is why I bought so many. Also, there was a recipe I wanted to try in the Guardian cookery supplement; and my foresight was rewarded, because the next Saturday there were a whole 10 beetroot recipes.

So I scrubbed the whole lot and gave them 15 minutes in the pressure cooker, which left them still on the firm side - don't believe recipes that tell you to boil normal-sized beetroot for 20 minutes in a normal pan (yes, beetroot risotto recipe, I am looking at you), this will get you nowhere. On the other hand, raw beetroot is fine, too...

First, from the Guardian's collection of pink recipes (you may want to avert your eyes as you scroll past the pomegranate and lime cupcakes) I made the beetroot and spelt flour bread. Inevitably, since I had been boasting about how I had sorted my baking routine, guests and other distractions intervened, and I had gone eight days since the last batch of bread. I was brave, stirred the separated liquid back into the starter, pretended not to notice how runny the whole thing had become - and it behaved perfectly. It took prolonged kneading to take up all the flour (that is, as much as I was prepared to insist on) but rose so stickily I ended up adding more flour just to handle it. The tricky bit was kneading in the chopped beetroot: chunks kept flying off in all directions, and some got on the floor and I trod on it, there were red stains everywhere ("I thought you must have cut yourself," said durham_rambler, who thinks I am bluer-blooded than is actually the case) and I had to wash the kitchen floor. Worth it, though.

The following week's ten best beetroot recipes inspired me to make a beetroot risotto, though I can't claim to have followed their recipe. For one thing, it required you to puree the beetroot, and mine (see above) were not really soft enough for this - or perhaps I just fancied the more interesting texture of little cubes of beetroot. Perhaps one day I will puree it, just for the comparison (or perhaps I won't). I also stirred in quite a lot of goat's cheese at the last minute, because I could, and the last of the thyme (yes, I ran out of thyme. I am easily amused.)

I followed the recipe more closely whyen it came to the beetroot and ginger chocolate brownies - though I had to improvise when it came to the stem ginger, since the recipe forgets about it - I chopped it up, and also added a slurp of syrup, and that seemed to work, since the brownies are distinctly gingery, but with no distinct traces of ginger. I halved the quantities, and may have overcooked the mixture, which came out as a light delicate cake with none of the fudginess of brownies. I may have to experiment further with this one.

And I seem to have bought more beetroot, though I'm thinking of grating it raw...

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Serious question: how do you halve three eggs? Use two, or one - or beat three together and use half the mixture? (For yes, I am looking at that recipe and thinking "I still have some of that not-entirely-failed preserved ginger, and beetroot are everywhere...")

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I used two - I buy medium eggs, and who knows, they might have meant large...

If you do it, please to blog it?