Root to Leaf Beet Salad

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Welcome to The Fifth Symphony!

For my first post on this blog, I decided to create a really simple beet salad. I really love beets. They really are a fall type of root vegetable and I eat them like candy. There's actually a lot you can do with them and the entire vegetable is edible from the root to the stems to the leaves. So, when you're eating beets, don't toss the rest away! For this dish, I decided to use the whole beet (except the skin) to show how versatile it really is and also make good use of the stems and leaves which would otherwise be thrown away.

I started off by pairing the beets with a hint of ginger to emphasise on the fall flavour. We also have yoghurt, walnuts, pickled beet stems, simple beet greens and a beet sauce. I decided to pickle the stems with a little bit of honey, because I thought that they would be bitter, but I'm really happy with the final result. I also wanted the plating to be a little bit more whimsical, so instead of dicing up the whole beet, I just quartered it and arranged it at the centre of the plate.


Root to Leaf Beet Salad

Beet preparation:

  • 1 medium sized beet (with the stems and leaves)
  • 4-5 thin slices of ginger
  • Pepper
  • Salt
Start by thoroughly washing the beet to remove any dirt. Chop the stem off, but don't cut  too close to the root. Fill a pot with water. Add the beet root, ginger, salt and pepper. Boil until the beet is cooked through, or until you can insert the tip of a knife into it with ease. Set aside to cool. Peel the beet and slice a little from the bottom to create a base for it to stand up. Quarter the beet and set aside.

Pickled beet stems:

  • Beet stems
  • 1/4 cup water
  • a little under 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp honey
Start by cutting the beet stems on a bias. In a small pot, combine the water, lemon juice, salt, sugar and honey. Bring to a slight simmer on low heat and set aside to cool.  Once cool, pour over the beet stems and allow to rest for at least 15-20 minutes.

Beet greens:

  • Beet leaves
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Lemon juice
Quickly blanch the leaves in boiling water for about 40 seconds and remove from the water. You can use the same water used for boiling the beet for this. Toss the leaves with salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice. Set aside.

Beet sauce:

  • 1/2 or 3/4 of a large beetroot
  • Lemon juice
Extract the juice from the beet with the help of a juicer. if you don't have a juicer, don't worry. Just finely grate the beets and transfer into a clean cloth. Tightly squeeze the cloth to remove as much of juice as you can. In a shallow pan, add the beet juice and just a few drops of lemon juice. Bring to a slight simmer and occasionally stir with a whisk. Remove from heat when the mixture has reduced considerably or  thickened.

To finish off:

  • Yoghurt
  • Chopped walnuts
  • Fresh mint
Start by placing the quartered beet in the centre of the plate. You may sprinkle some salt on it. Place the beet leaves on top of the beet. Drizzle a circle of yoghurt around it (make sure your yoghurt is slightly runny).  Add the chopped walnuts. Drain the pickled beet stems and add them around the beet. Spoon some of the beet sauce and garnish with fresh mint. 

Voila!! 


        

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2 comments:

  1. SuzanneFebruary 8, 2021 at 12:08 AM

    Worded so perfectly that it becomes even more appetizing!! Hands down to this perfection attained with the very first blog!! Amazing salad with utmost resourcefulness!

    ReplyDelete

Tea Traditions
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POST | KAHWA: KASHMIRI TEA

Let’s talk about tea

Whether it’s a whole ceremony at your home or a reason to argue over who is going to make it on weekend mornings, tea rules: it’s a universal beverage. The big drink.

Whenever I think of afternoon tea, or just tea in general, one of the first things that comes to my mind is a cup of milk tea surrounded by a table loaded with finger sandwiches, biscuits, scones, jam, cream and Victoria sponge cake; British tea. That’s what I think of tea as. But this visual could be different for you. You might think of masala chai from India, matcha tea ceremonies if you’re from Japan, the first time you drank çai on your visit to Turkey, some tea bags or just some soggy tea-drenched toast.

Whatever it is, tea is a huge tradition all over the world, and just like truth, it has different versions: British afternoon tea, Indian milk tea, Burmese laphet and Moroccan mint tea, to name a few.

What are some of your tea traditions?



Food for thought,

by food, for food.


A lot of my friends ask me where I get my ideas from. Many just assume that I’m a culinary genius and I pick ideas from my brain just as someone would go apple-picking. But that’s far from the truth. You do NOT know what other salt has fallen into my failed dishes.

I get all of my ideas from other food: cookbooks, recipes on Instagram and food blogs of chefs and MasterChef contestants (especially Beccy from Canada Season 5, Fred and Nick from US Season 10 and Suu from US Season 11) whom I admired in their seasons. Many of my findings act as a catalyst for new ideas or help me steer existing dishes in the right direction. Sometimes I’d just want to be a normal foodie and try other’s dishes because, well, I’m hungry. In short, food for my new ideas, by other chef’s food for MY food on this blog. Quite the analogy.


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