I love beets. When I was a kid, I wasn’t a real big fan of them. They came in jars or cans and they would stain your hands and clothes. I was always under the impression that the redness of the beets was caused by some sort of a pickling process or food coloring, which also bummed me out a bit. It wasn’t until my late 20s that Liz suggested we try roasting beets in the oven. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but hey, I’ll try anything. I was totally shocked and stunned when I cut into them and they were the deep red color I had remembered as a kid. I remember Liz being confused by my reaction and puzzled that I never knew beets were actually deep burgundy or red. It was kind of a “beet shaming” that I had to endure for a couple weeks. Anyway, there is a restaurant my son and his girlfriend like to frequent in Louisville named Bar Vetti. This is Andrew’s (my son) take on the recipe, and he absolutely nailed it, with one caveat. He asked me to do a quick smoke on the beets, which was brilliant. Let’s get started.
Ingredients:
A large jar of roasted, pickled and cubed beets
Ricotta cheese
Lemon zest
Freshly cracked black pepper
Shelled pistachios
Mint
Premium olive oil
You’ll notice there isn’t a listing of quantities for each ingredient. It’s basically a heap of this and a sprinkling and drizzling of that. A lot of the beet salad recipes use goat cheese, which I like as well, but some in our family aren’t fond of the strength of goat cheese. And admittedly, ricotta is much creamier.
Let’s start with the smoking of the beets. Tex (my gas grill loving neighbor and friend) will be happy to know that I smoked these beets on my gas grill. I drained the beets and placed them in my grill saute’ pan, the one with the holes in it that I keep telling you guys to buy yet most of you probably haven’t. I set the grill up on medium and indirect heat and filled the smoke box with a couple handfuls of pecan wood chips. I placed the box directly over the flame and placed the beets on the side opposite the flame. I then closed the lid. It took 10 minutes or so before we started seeing smoke, then it really poured out. After 10 minutes of smoking we pulled the beets and put them in the fridge to chill.
After the beets have chilled, to assemble the salad, just place a small mound of ricotta cheese in the middle of a chilled plate, then a few pieces of the smoked beets. Add a few sprigs of mint, zest some lemon, a few pistachios and hit it with some freshly cracked black pepper. Last, a drizzling of some really high quality olive oil. By the way, you could roast your own beets for this recipe, but it was much easier buying the cubed beets in a jar. Give this a try. You will like it, assuming of course you like beets. Enjoy!
November 06, 2020 at 10:56PM
https://ift.tt/3eA3pS7
BBQ MY WAY: Smoking beets adds flavor to beet salad - Evening News and Tribune
https://ift.tt/3ekeW79
salad
No comments:
Post a Comment