FOOD: Beetroot salad.
This recipe could be made with canned beetroot, but if you do have the time, I would definitely encourage you to buy baby beetroots and poach them. What you get is greater freshness and more satisfaction, and some leaves that can be shredded and tossed through the salad.
Often salads are forgotten during winter. Raw vegetables get forgotten. But increasingly there are seasonal vegetables that can be eaten raw in the cold months and that are not iceberg lettuce.
I love the bitter leaves that become available: the Treviso in this salad, but also radicchio and different types of chicory. And that’s before we get to the larger brassica family.
I’ll be the first to admit that Treviso is not available at all greengrocers, but red endive should be available and works just as well even if it is a little less delicate.
The Treviso we used in this salad was absolutely beautiful – ever so slightly bitter with a great crunch.
The dehydrated beetroot in this salad is an attempt to achieve a chewy, gummy bear-like texture. I don’t own a dehydrator at home, so I turn my oven down really low and put the beetroot in for the afternoon. This does more than alter the texture: it also concentrates the flavour.
There is a current vogue for different-coloured beetroot, but in this salad the colours could clash a little. And I honestly believe there is a place for the good oldfashioned red beetroot, and this salad is as good as any.
The pistachios could be replaced with walnuts, and if you are going that far, you may as well add some blue cheese and call it a Waldorf salad. Just stay away from goat’s curd. For some reason, every time I see a beetroot salad lately, goat’s cheese somehow makes its way into the mix. •