Baby beets

November 12, 2007

Beetroot isn’t one of the restaurant world’s most cherished vegetables because it has a habit of taking charge and leaching red pigment everywhere. I still have visions of sandwiches stained by slices of beetroot and hamburgers shedding a lumps of beetroot onto a pristine shirts.

Whenever I have prepared beetroot dishes for a food column, I’ve had to photograph them fairly quickly before the bleeding starts. Beetroot, though, can contribute such a gorgeous splash of colour to a dish and careful draining along with last minute assembly is the key to preserving the integrity of component items – check out my Witloof and Beetroot Boats.

The villains are the red betains, complex nitrogen-containing molecules that also colour rainbow chard, amaranth and prickly pears. The human body has a limited ability to metabolise these molecules which, the more observant will have noted, can dramatically colour the urine and – avert your eyes if you are sensitive - stools. Anyone curious to know how long it takes their body to process a meal can find out by consuming a few beetroot.

Beetroot juice has been used as a red colouring for many years. In her book The Experienced English Housekeeper, first published in 1769, Elizabeth Raffald featured a recipe for pink pancakes coloured with cooked beets pounded in a mortar and combined with other ingredients.

Red betains are, however, good antioxidants and are worth including in the diet.

Bunches of baby beetroot are readily available these days. If you are lucky enough to find some with tender young leaves, you’ll get two vegetables for the price of one. The leaves can be prepared like spinach.

Small beets marry well with a good Spanish sherry vinegar. Snip off the leaves and give the beetroot a quick wash then simmer in salted water until tender. Cool and slip off the skins and stalks. Place the beets in a single layer in a suitable dish and sprinkle with the vinegar and set aside until required. Turn occasionally.

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