Category: beetroot

Categories
asparagus beetroot carrots cucumber

crunchy summer salad

Sainsbury’s are wanting to inspire the nation to be more creative with their vegetables after seeing a massive upturn in sales of vegetables with Avocado (147%), asparagus spears (118%), broccoli (40%), courgettes (30%) and bunched beetroot (25%) leading the way. I do love a salad, but it’s a bit easy just to get a plastic bag of leaves, slice a tomato and say we’re done. There’s so much more that can go in a salad though!

Inspired by their “vegetable butcher” Amber Locke I felt like giving it a go too. I am a recent convert to spiralizing veg and have been going all out to make curly-wurly courgettes. I’ve been trying out the Savisto tabletop model and Lakeland hand-held models lately – look for more detailed reviews in a future post. If you don’t have a spiralizer, just slice the ingredients finely on the cutter side of a box grater or mandoline.

Combined with lightly pickled cucumber to make the base of a dressing and freshly grilled asparagus this salad celebrates plenty of vegetables and would be a vibrant accompaniment to a barbecue.

Sainsbury’s contributed to the ingredients for this recipe.

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crunchy summer salad

Course Side Dish
Prep Time 10 minutes
Total Time 10 minutes
Servings 4 people
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the pickle:

  • 20 ml white wine vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried dill

The veg:

  • 2 beetroots
  • 2 carrots
  • 1/2 cucumber
  • 1 romaine lettuce
  • 1 raddichio
  • 1 tablespoon mixed seeds

Instructions

  • Mix the pickle ingredients together. Slice the cucumber lengthways and use a teaspoon to scoop out the seeds. Chop diagonally and leave in the marinade while you get everything else ready.
  • Grill or barbecue the asparagus for ten minutes, or until wrinkled and blackened.
  • Lay the asparagus on a serving plate. Spiralize or slice the beetroot and carrot and lay on top. Remove the cucumber from the marinade (reserving the liquid) and add this. Shred the lettuces and top the salad. Scatter mixed seeds over the top.
  • Whisk a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil into the pickle mix, and drizzle over the salad.
Categories
avocado beetroot carrots courgettes food

beetroot salad

An old chum of mine, Terry, has a running blog based in Australia. I haven’t the slightest interest in running but I am interested in recipes, so when he asked me to come up with a beetroot dish to help celebrate his latest favourite superfood, I was more than happy to oblige.

Hop on over to Terry’s blog for my guest post of a beetroot salad.

Categories
beetroot carrots duck potatoes

duck breast with pomme purée and roast roots

I fancied something a little special for our anniversary and it had been a long time since we’d had duck. We also fancied some beetroot so I put the two together, along with a variation on the mash I did for the fish pie recently to make a delicious dinner.

Duck breast with pomme purée and roast roots:

For the roast roots:

4 fist-sized beetroot, skinned and diced

2 carrots, diced the same size as the beetroots

4 cloves of garlic, unpeeled

Sprig of rosemary

Sprig of thyme

Balsamic vinegar

For the potatoes:

4 charlotte potatoes, peeled and cut into 1cm thick slices

25g butter

100ml milk

For the duck:

2 duck breasts, skin scored with a diamond pattern

2 rashers of bacon

6 juniper berries, squished a bit

1 teaspoon flour

400ml chicken stock

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.
  2. Pop the beetroot, carrot, garlic, thyme and rosemary in a baking tray and toss in olive oil. Put in the oven for 45 mins – 1 hour until the veg is tender. After 30 minutes add salt, pepper and a sprinkle of sugar, then douse generously with balsamic vinegar and toss well.
  3. For the potatoes, rinse in cold water then plunge into salted boiling water for 20 minutes or until very tender. Drain and pass through a sieve onto butter. When you’re ready to serve, get the milk to the boil in a pan and beat the potato into it.
  4. For the duck, heat a dry frying pan to very, very hot. Season the duck generously on both sides and place skin-side down into the pan. When the skin has crisped (about 5 minutes), pop the bacon and juniper in the same pan and put the lot in the oven.
  5. After 18 minutes remove the duck and allow to rest while you make a sauce. Take the pan on to a hob on a high heat and sprinkle over the flour. Stir in well then add the stock. Bubble furiously until it’s thick and reduced. Serve everything together and eat while piping hot.
Categories
beetroot burger cumin dill food lamb tahini

lamb burgers with beetroot relish

Burger season is definitely in full swing. Check out these lamby beggars. I stole inspiration for this one from Waitrose as it combines lovely Mediterranean flavours with a hint of Middle East. The burger itself was fab, as was the tahini-tainted creme fraiche. The beetroot relish was OK; fresh tasting but lacking a bit of a pep. I tried to rescue it with a blast of salt, red wine vinegar and pepper but it wasn’t quite there. Needs more work.

Lamb burgers with beetroot relish:

2 shallots, finely diced

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

2 large raw beetroot

1 tbsp roughly chopped dill

500g lamb mince

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

200g Greek yoghurt

2 tablespoons tahini

  1. Dry fry the cumin seeds in a hot pan until toasty. Remove to one side and crush a bit – leave some whole. Mix these with the lamb and sesame seeds, season well and form into burgers. Chill until needed.
  2. Put the shallot in a large bowl. Peel and coarsely grate the beetroot into the bowl. Add a couple of teaspoons of oil and dill. Season generously and mix well. Cover and set aside at room temperature for at least 20 minutes. Check for seasoning and add red wine vinegar as required.
  3. Blend the yogurt and tahini together and set aside.
  4. Light the barbecue or preheat the grill. Cook the burgers for about 5 minutes on each side for well done, or until cooked to your liking. Serve in a toasted roll on a bed of salad leaves, topped with the relish and a dollop of tahini cream. Serve the remaining relish and tahini cream on the side.
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