On a recent trip out West it seems like every restaurant we visited had the inevitable Beet Salad in one form or another on their menu.
Roasted beets, pickled beets, beets combined with oranges or pears, beets slaw, beet borsch (hot or cold) and beet risotto which is not a headliner in any Italian restaurant I’ve ever visited but most likely rears its creamy Arborio head in new “15 minutes of fame” restaurants.
In Los Angeles we headed out to Venice where the Muscle Beach crowd has had to make room for young affluent Angelinos who adore their beets as star-power salads, on exquisitely thin crusted pizzas or as a veggie punching up a perfectly grilled fish with its crimson color.
Having grown up in the South I don’t exactly swoon at the mention of them but remember Sunday nights at the Read House Green Room where the pickled beets came in a relish carousel along with pickled watermelon rind and those little green olives filled with pimentos.
The Green Room was home to well-dressed parents and their children on that particular night when it seemed everyone knew everyone else and Jon Robere played every old standard ever written.
At Gjelina’s in Venice on the busy Monday night we dined it appeared that large communal tables mingled with smaller groups and out where we sat on the patio our neighbors to my right became instant friends discussing their food selections and offering samples of this most amazing butterscotch pudding topped with a small amount of salt crystals. Absolutely worth a return trip.
It was also apparent that many of the wait staff were waiting for a call from Central Casting or in the case of our waiter waiting for his film script to find a producer. The script had something to do with Frisbees so I’m hopeful he’ll hang on to his current job for a bit longer.
There were two beet options on the menu. One was a marinated beet salad with avocado and hazelnuts tossed in Sherry vinaigrette and the other was a salad of Dungeness crab, endive and avocado tossed in a creamy horseradish sauce.
While I sometimes buy the canned variety of beets and pickle them myself, I really like to find the beets fresh at the market. What is nice about that is that I get two separate dishes with the fresh; one the beets themselves and the other the beet tops which are great sautéed with olive oil and a squeeze of lemon or a splash of vinegar.
Whatever the case, fresh or canned, roasted or shredded into a slaw, I believe you need to keep to the beet.
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Beet Salad tossed with fresh peaches, sugared walnuts and blue cheese crumbles
Ingredients (serves 4)
1 large fresh beet roasted and skin removed cut into quarters
2 large firm peaches peeled and sliced into wedges( save juice for dressing)*
1 cup of walnuts tossed in brown sugar glaze
1 cup of blue cheese crumbles
½ cut Olive oil and ¼ cup peach or white balsamic vinegar
Optional: fresh mint to garnish
*Note: if fresh peaches are unavailable use fresh orange segments
Preparation
Make dressing with olive oil, juice drippings from peaches and vinegar
Place beets in glass bowl add dressing toss and let marinate for 10 or more however it can be made a day ahead and placed in a zip lock bag overnight
Divide beets between 4 salad plates, add peach slices, top with blue cheese crumbles, scatter walnuts and garnish with mint leaves
For additional color you can put down spinach leaves before adding other ingredients
(Charles Siskin is a former Chattanoogan now living on the Florida coast with his wife, Cookie. He can be reached at cater1@embarqmail.com)