The Vulgaris Beet

One of my favorite vegetables is in season right now. If you think of a tin can when you think of beets, then you haven't experienced beets in all their glory.

When you purchase a bunch of fresh beets from the local farmstand or in the produce department of your grocer, you are taking home a truly versatile vegetable.

Beets can be eaten raw, grated into a salad or slaw, covered with water and boiled in a saucepan, roasted in the oven, or pickled. I have even seen them made into cakes and ice cream! The green tops can be cooked separately in a little water and served like spinach.

Like many people growing up in the city in the 50s, the only beets I tasted were out of a can. They were quite bland and not at all memorable. Years later, while traveling through Europe I was served fresh beets, and they were an entirely different story. Beets are much more popular in Europe, and I looked for them in Germany, Belgium, and Scandinavia. I tasted them in soups, relishes, and pies. They were wonderful, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Related to Swiss chard, spinach, and the sugar beet, the common garden beet (beta vulgaris) was initially developed from a leafy Mediterranean plant.

Ancient Romans ate only the leaves. Later on, they bravely nibbled on the bulbs. Nineteenth century horticulturists developed the fleshy globe-shaped roots familiar to us today.

In recent years, these beets have been crossbred with sugar beets to give them more sweetness.

In addition to red beets, there are golden-yellow, and pink-and-white-ringed beets. You can find seeds to grow these yellow and white beets in seed catalogs. These are good choices to grow alongside red beets as they won’t tint other ingredients if used in salads and other mixed vegetable dishes.

I happen to love the color, though you have to be careful when cleaning beets, lest your kitchen look like a crime scene.

The best way to cook and clean beets are to scrub them in the sink, nip off the roots and leaves about 2-inches from the root. Be careful not to break the tender skin of the beet, or the rich red juice will be lost in cooking. Cover the beets with water and boil for about 45 minutes.

After they are cooked, drain them and peel them under cool running water by rubbing them (you can do this with paper towels to avoid staining your fingers). The skins should slip right off.


Beetroot Chutney
I found this recipe in a little Scottish cookbook during my travels. This makes a colorful tasty relish to serve alongside roast turkey or baked ham. This recipe calls for a lot of sugar. I feel that halving the amount of sugar would not harm this recipe at all.
3 pounds beetroot
2 pounds apples
2 onions
1 pint vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 pounds sugar
1 lemon
Wash the beets, and boil unpeeled for 1 1/2 hours. Allow to cool in the water, then peel them and cut into small cubes. Peel and chop the apples and onions. Squeeze the juice from the lemon. Put the apples and onions into a pan with the vinegar, lemon juice, sugar, salt, and ginger. Boil for 20 minutes. Add the beetroot cubes and cook for another 20 minutes. Allow to cool; spoon into hot, sterilized jars and seal. Makes about 4 pints.

Hot Spicy Shredded Beets
2 pounds beets, trimmed, peeled, and coarsely grated
1/2 cup coarsely grated onion
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup dry red wine
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Simmer all ingredients, covered, 25 to 30 minutes until beets are tender and flavors well blended. Stir once or twice during cooking.
Serves 4.

Baby Beets with Beet Greens
Select young beets when they are not larger than a shallot; the tops will then be just the right age to be tender and sweet. Wash thoroughly in running water. Be careful not to break the skin of the beet, or the rich red juice will be lost in cooking.

Put them in enough slightly salted boiling water to well cover them and boil quickly until tender; it should require from thirty to forty-five minutes. Take them out of the pot when done and plunge the beets only, not the tops, into very cold water; the skins will very readily rub off with the fingers.

Drain the greens and cut them up, not too fine; add plenty of melted butter, a tablespoonful of vinegar or lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.

Mix lightly with a fork, arrange them on a shallow dish or platter, cut the beets in halves, and lay them in a border around the greens. To make the dish more ornamental the beets may be alternated with slices of hardboiled egg. Serve with the following sour cream dressing, or any mayonnaise-based dressing of your choice. Ranch dressing is a good choice.

Sour Cream Dressing
1/2 pint sour cream
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons vinegar
1 scant tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon or to taste prepared mustard
Stir the sour cream until smooth. Gradually add the remaining ingredients, mixing well as you do so.