Beetroot – from garden to plate 3

Now, moving along on this garden to plate series from crowd pleasing avocado, to a decidedly less exciting and well loved vegetable, beetroot. By me, of course. I think I had a few bad borscht experiences that I’ve since blocked out. I grew up with avocados, but Dad didn’t start growing beetroot until I’d all but moved out. So although I was au fait with the pickled and tinned version, fresh beetroot has taken a while to grow on me.

But learn to like beetroot I have, raw, pickled, steamed baked and even the leaves as the entire plant can be consumed. Beetroot take about 16 weeks to mature and the baby ones you see on the shelf are the same variety as the larger bulbs, just picked earlier. I have it on good authority that the root can grow to the size of a watermelon and still be edible! But if the plant goes to seed then the root becomes woody and unpleasant to eat. Also, if you’re growing them yourself you can harvest the leaves as you need them leave the bulb to continue to grow.

Beetroot actually grow above the ground, the ones in these pictures are just covered with soil to shield them from predators. You know how sometimes in the shops the top third of the beetroot looks pale and unappetising? Well don’t worry, this is just a little bit of sun damage and doesn’t affect the taste, colour or quality of the bulb at all.

The beetroot (beta vulgaris – oh how I love that name) is related to the sugar beet and silver beet or chard. If you’re growing beetroot on a large scale then about one in a thousand will revert to the white of the sugar beet but will be identical to its red sibling in everything else. When I was on the farm I harvested a cubic megatonne of beets walking down the rows picking the exact size that I required for pickling.

Raw beetroot is often overlooked, except shredded as a tasteless, limp and boring filler for salads and wraps. This is a shame as it is crisp, sweet, earthy, complex and beautiful. I made this very simple salad after a beetroot picking expedition where we also harvested a mutant sugar beet. Only use super-fresh beetroot as its flavour and crunch is incomparable. Paired with creamy sharp goats curd and dill it is like tarted up salad-borscht, only better.

Beetroot, goats cheese and dill salad

Peel and finely slice beetroot, arrange on a plate and dot with goats cheese and sprigs of dill. Drizzle with olive oil and white wine vinegar, sprinkle with sea salt and pepper and serve.