Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Back to Blog Main Page

Beets

Posted February 07, 2011
Find more about salad , beets , winter , vegetables , pickles
4  | 
I found this helpful Thank You! Your vote will be tallied soon!

Here are the beets going in to bake.

And coming out again much later.

The veggie-scrubbing gloves that my parents gave me for Christmas.

The peeled beets, looking somehow like rows of vulnerable schoolchildren.

The beets diced for salad.

And sliced for pickles. Believe me, even this vast number of pink photographs represents incredible restraint. The beets were outrageously photogenic.

Orange juice and zest for the salad.

And the finished salad.

Pickling liquid for the pickles.

And the finished pickles.

Don't tell me you didn't bring a beet salad to the game day party you attended! It's the classic football snack, second only to chili or hot wings, I'm sure. No? But I had a dozen beets burning a hole in my root cellar (I do love to write "root cellar" and force you to picture an old-fashioned row of wooden crates, even if it properly refers to paper bag in the basement, beneath our ping-pong table). Plus, we'd been invited to the house of the friends whose house I love to be invited to. They're the kind of people who have so often invited us to stay for dinner, even if we're there mid-day or only briefly to pick up some or other child, that I got in the habit trying to prepare myself for this inevitability. I am now famous in their house, and teased mercilessly, for the way I once responded to an impromptu invitation by saying, shyly, "Oh, we'd love to! I actually happen to have a carrot salad in the trunk of my car."

So I happened to have this beet salad in the trunk of my car. It is a wintry salad through and through: the beets, that still harbor all the sweetness of summer like a rosy memory, the crunchy celery that always has a year-round appeal to me, the bright citrus, the rich and nourishing walnuts. It is seasonally perfect and balanced and delicious, and it will leave you with a pink-stained everything to make you smile. But while you're roasting the beets anyway, why not roast a lot of beets and pickle some? That's what I did, and I really recommend it, because it adds hardly any time to your beet prep, and then you've got this big glass jar of magenta gorgeousness to add to your salads and sandwiches.

If your children think they don't like beets, these pickled beets might encourage them to think again: they're sweet and sweetly spiced, and they are just the pinkest things ever. For dramatic effect, lay one onto something--a pile of mashed potatoes, say--that it can bleed its gorgeous color into. Or is that gross? I don't know. I just Googled "Catherine Newman beets toilet" because I was trying to remember if I ever told you the story of encouraging my friend Andrew to try a pickled beet, even though he hates beets profoundly and might turn out even to be allergic to them, given that after one tiny nibble he spent, like, a week on the toilet. So don't go that far is all I'm trying to say.

P.S. If you get on a real beet kick, don't forget this borscht and this dip!

P.P.S. These are the scrubby gloves. I love the scrubby gloves.

P.P.P.S. Someone mentioned having a ginormous bottle of fish sauce, thanks to me, and wishing I'd post more recipes to help use it up, which I appreciate. But you know what? If you Google my name, in quotation marks, and then whatever ingredient you're wanting to use, you will be able to find all my recipes, even if you have to click "see more family.com results" or "see all results from go.com" or whatever. And for fish sauce, I actually ended up finding 10 recipes! I'm just saying. It's like I'm obsessed with fish sauce.

Baked Beets
I admit to pressure-cooking beets on occasion, when I have forgotten to prepare them ahead of time, but it leaves them somewhat soggy I find. Baking beets in the oven, however, concentrates their sweetness and couldn't be easier. Some folks simply wrap individual beets in foil and roast them that way, but they take longer, and I like this method better.

Heat the oven to 400. Place however many scrubbed but untrimmed beets you like into a lidded casserole dish that they will fit into in a nice, snug way. Add a half an inch of water, cover, and bake until the beets feel tender when you pierce them with the tip of a sharp knife. Depending on the size of your beets, this will take anywhere from 30 minutes (very small beets) to an hour and a half (enormous storage behemoths). I checked mine at 45 minutes, and they were done at 65. Let the beets cool (if you cheated them, and they could use a hair extra cooking, let them cool in their lidded casserole, where they'll continue to steam a bit), then slice off their tops and rub the skins off under cold running water. Slice or cube, dress with a tablespoon of vinegar, then let them sit until you're ready to use them. (Alice Waters says to always dress beets with vinegar while they're still warm, and not to add oil until they're cool or they WILL NEVER TASTE AS GOOD and I believe her. Her name links to the Chez Panisse Vegetable Cookbook, which is organized by vegetable, which I love, and which is full of great concepts as well as recipes.)

Winter Beet Salad
Serves 8-10
Active time: 15 minutes; total time: 1 1/2 hours

This salad is sweet and crunchy, tangy, fresh, and gorgeous. If I'd had feta or fresh goat cheese, I would have crumbled some in and decreased the salt a bit, and those creamy, salty bursts would have been fantastic. Also, a little bit of something pungent--chopped onions or shallots or scallions--would be a nice addition, but there were some fairly skeptical kids among the diners, so I omitted them. A bed of greens--spinach or arugula--beneath the beets would make a nice addition as well.

6 medium beets, baked as above
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar (or balsamic), divided use
1 orange
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt (or blah as much blah blah blah)
1/2 cup walnuts, toasted for 4 minutes at 350, then broken up coarsely
3 stalks celery, sliced, with lots of their leaves, slivered

Dice the peeled beets into 1/2-inch cubes, then dress them with 1 tablespoon of the vinegar and set them aside while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Make the dressing by whisking together 1/2 of the grated zest of the orange along with 1/4 cup of its juice, the oil, salt, and remaining vinegar.

When you're ready to eat, sprinkle the celery decoratively over the beets, dress with the vinaigrette, then scatter the walnuts and celery leaves decoratively over the top of the salad. Toss at the table after everyone's had a chance to admire it, then taste for salt and vinegar and add a little of either or both if the flavor needs brightening.

Pickled Beets
Makes 1 1/2 quarts
Active time: 15 minutes; total time: 1 hour 30 minutes

6 medium beets, baked as above
2 cups cider vinegar
1 cup water
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon pickling spice (or bit of allspice, cloves, and cinnamon)

Trim and skin the cooled beets, then slice them a quarter inch thick and put them in a large glass jar or bowl. Bring the remaining ingredients to a boil in a pot, simmer for 10 minutes, and pour through a strainer (if you used powdered spice you can skip the strainer) over the beets. Cool and store in the fridge, where they will keep for a couple of weeks.

Member Comments On...

Beets

Back to Main Blog Page
Search Recipes
300x250

About Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir, Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, available online and in bookstores nationwide.

View My Profile View My Guestbook
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
August 2006
300x250
728x90
Please log in ...
Close
You must be logged in to use this feature.
Become a member

Thank You!

Thank you for helping us maintain a friendly, high quality community at Family.com. This comment will be reviewed by a community moderator.

Flag as Not Acceptable?

We review flagged content and enforce our Terms of Use, in which content must never be:

See full Terms of Use.