You can’t beat beetroot

 

In-season if winter and early spring, beetroots are great for roasting, for casseroles, soups, salads and dips. It’s also easy to pickle and set aside for summer sandwiches and burgers.

Pickled beetroot

Ingredients

• 4 beetroots large (600-800g total)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 1/2 cups white vinegar
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp peppercorns, coarsely cracked 
• 4 curry leaves
• 2 whole cloves
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 1/2 cinnamon stick
• 1 tsp salt

Method

Preheat oven to 160º C

Wash beetroot thoroughly. Place in a roasting pan and drizzle with olive oil. Roast, covered, for 1-2 hours, or until al dente (cooking them in boiling water is quicker, but the flavour isn’t quite as good).

Remove from oven to cool.

Place all other ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil.

Simmer for 5 minutes.

Remove the cinnamon and cloves.

Once beetroots are cool, remove skin and cut beetroot into slices - I like about .5 cm.

Pack beetroot into hot, sterilised jars.

Use some of the pickling liquid to deglaze the roasting dish and return the liquid to the saucepan. 

Top up the jars with vinegar mixture, evenly distributing the remaining whole spices.

Seal and store in a cool place.

Yields about 4 jam jars of yummy beetroot pickles.

Favourite Pesto Recipe

A hot first couple of weeks of March (next week in Sydney will be in the mid 30s) has meant summer garden produce continues to kick on.

In my fridge I’ve got 4 jars of sweet and hot chilli sauce, 3 jars of chilli and tomato chutney and 2 jars of pickled chilli slices.

The key to a good home harvest is harvesting. It reduces the risk of pest attack. You don’t want your sweet basil to flower, but you do want your cherry tomatoes to flower.

Today was basil harvest.

Just two plants in one pot has kept me going since November.

I’ve pestoed lots of times. This one isn’t exactly authentic, but it’s the recipe I like the most.

The following yields about 300ml or 260g

Ingredients

• 100g basil leaves, about 2 cups packed 
• 40g pine nuts, about 1/4 cup, lightly toasted
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly browned
• 1 green chilli
• 25g, about 1/3 cup, fresh grated parmesan cheese
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• .5 teaspoon white pepper
• 1 lime, juiced

Method

Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Toast pine nuts and garlic cloves until golden, tossing occasionally in the pan. Add the pine nuts to the bowl of your food processor along with all the other ingredients

Run the processor until you achieve and even, slightly coarse paste. You will need to pause a couple of times and adjust the contents with a spatula.

Yields about 260g pesto, about 300ml

Storage: this pesto can be stored in a sterilised, air tight jar and refrigerated for a couple of weeks.

Embrace the bitterness - it's a very bachelor thing to do

Well, it’s more sour than bitter - but you get the picture.

My kaffir lime plant, now fIve years old, has produced good fruit this season. But what to do with it… The limes look great - like little green brains from something little, green and brainy.

There are lots of seeds inside, and a tough and conspicuous core - but the juice is strong and tasty, likewise the rind.

So I found some oranges that needed to be used, rounded up all the sugar in the pantry, and set to work.

I wish I had done this with my recent pickles - for bachelor proportions, turn to the microwave!

Kaffir and orange marmalade

Ingredients

• 3 medium oranges, peeled, seeded and chopped
• 3 kaffir limes, cored, seeded and finely sliced
• 5 cloves
• Sugar (in this instance I used up all the sugar I had - caster sugar, about 200g, raw sugar, about 200g, and brown sugar, also 200g.
• Water

Method

• Prepare fruit, and weigh, then add to about 2 litre mixing bowl. I have found the best way to handle the kaffir limes is to quarter them down the core. That way the core peels away easily in four strips, and the seeds (and there are quite a few of them) are more easily scooped out.
• Add same weight of sugar, plus a bit more because the kaffir lime is more sour than your average fruit, to mixing bowl
• Pour in enough water to cover - hold the fruit down with your flat hand, and once the water reacher your knuckles, that is about enough
• Put in microwave on high for 10 minutes
• Taste - things you can add if it’s not quite right include more sugar, maybe orange juice, lemon juice
• Add cloves, stir, and return to microwave on medium for another 10 minutes
• The mixture should have a fairly homogeneous colour by now, and be close to gel point. You can tell it is at gel point by taking a teaspoon and pouring onto an cold saucer. If it thickens as it cools, it is ready. What you are after is not to be solidly set, but to just holds the spoon and drips out rather than pours freely. If it is still runny, pop the mixture back in the microwave at medium and repeat until gel point is reached.
• Once you have established gel point, let the mixture cool a little so that it is safe to handle, but not set.
• Stir, and transfer to sterilised jars, seal, and refrigerate immediately

Yields: 1 kg marmalade for breakfast toast and arvo cheese platter

The juice is the dressing

Simple pickles and how to use them

Last weekend I took the boys to visit their grandma. As we were sorting out the lunch spread, my mum handed me a jar from the fridge and said - polish this off for me.

It was the last of a simple vegetable pickle - mostly pickle juice at this stage. And I thought - what a salad dressing this would make!

So we talked about how the little pickle can be done, and how I could use some spare veggies in my pantry - carrots and white radish. The carrots came from Paddy’s Market, Sydney; the white radish from Throg: the farm from beyond, Wootton.

Ingredients

• 2 cups shredded carrots and white radish
• 2 cm cub ginger, sliced
• 1 clove garlic, sliced
• 6 or 8 pepper corns
• .5 teaspoon cummin seeds
• .75 cup vinegar (e.g. combo white and cider)
• .25 cup water
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method

Combine vinegar, water, sugar and salt, and bring to boil Add the remaining ingredients Bring back to boil and continue until the carrots are softened, but still slightly crunchy Transfer to a sterilised jar with enough juice to cover Refrigerate straight away
Yields: about a jam jar’s worth: approx 360gm

And putting to use…

The boys were back with their mum, so I rebranded the cooked lamb chops into cubes - to make them sort of like little meaty croutons, frying in butter, quickly just to get that crunch. A simple baby spinach leaf and tomato salad, with crispy lamb and pickles. Thank you and goodnight!