To Beet or not to Beet

Golden, delicious

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How's this for ironic: growing up in West Virginia, a place where seasons actually had a dramatic difference, I never really had a sense of foods being "in season" or not.  Aside from favorites like tomatoes we would get from neighbors, and blackberries we'd pick from the bushes in the empty field down the lane -- both in August, my birthday month! -- most all our food came from the store which, even then, had everything all the time. 

Now, living in San Francisco where the weather vacillates mostly between very cold spring weather and really quite nice spring weather, I have a much greater awareness of what's in season and what's probably been trucked or flown in from Bolivia.

California, of course, has almost an ideal climate for most agriculture, and so growing seasons seem to start earlier and stretch much longer than Back East, but since cooking and eating as we are accustomed to around here, I'm now aware that, yes... there are even vegetables that are in season in the winter.  Favorites like Brussels Sprouts, and really snappy root vegetables like Parsnips and Turnips belong to the province of Thanksgiving and Christmas, but at least we have something to look forward too when we've eaten about as much Asparagus as we can manage. Burp.

I used to lump Beets into the winter veg category, but as it turns out, there are different varieties of beet available fresh all through the year, and the worst of them are still fantastically delicious, not to mention good for you.  On and off, I still meet people who "don't like beets."  Like them, I used to associate beets with the tinny, soft things that came out of a can, dark red and putrid; every child's worst culinary nightmare.

It can clean out your colon the hard way.

But having such a variety of fresh beets to make fresh at home has me addicted.  Our friend Ginger, ever the farmer's market shopper, actually brought to us as a Christmas gift this year, an enormous red beet the likes of which I had never seen outside the raciest of adult bookstores.  It was almost a bigger hit at the party than our exceedingly attractive professional baseball player-cum-bartender. 

As we cleaned up the next day, we roasted the thing and ate it for days afterward.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but every trip to the toilet ended up looking like a murder scene.  Yow!

Why seam another stalk of fricking broccoli?  Make some beets today!

ROASTED BEETS

This isn't so much a recipe as it is a method, and it works for nearly any type of beet you can find. C'pher and I like to roast them since it's so easy and can be made days ahead of time.  We even did our Giant Beet this way, though I had to cut it in half and roast it in two different dishes, rotating their positions in the oven halfway through my estimated time. If you do roast beets that you have to cut beforehand, be sure the cut side is facing down onto the dish, so you'll lose less liquid.

There are lots of methods of roasting beets, but we like this one, which we pretty much stole from Alice Waters and Paul Bertolli's Chez Panisse Cooking. It's almost like steaming them, but the fact that you use so little water means that the sugars get nice and carmalized, and the circulating water and steam make sure the outsides don't dry out before the insides are done. Don't bother putting herbs in when you roast -- they usually just burn and don't really add much except to what you smell while they cook.

This is the perfect dish to prepare ahead of time, as they keep for days in the fridge and taste better and better as they marinate. When you can, buy beets with the greens still on them, since that's a good indicator of how fresh the beet is.

Pre-heat oven to 475° F.  Cut the greens from the beets, leaving a 1-2 inch stub of stems on the top. Reserve the greens for another dish (They are great sauteed in olive oil with a little garlic. Top them with salt and a little lemon juice once they've wilted -- just like spinach).

Scrub the beets in water well to get the dirt off.  Unless there are some really rotten spots, try not to cut them at all or break the skin. You can cut away small blemishes later after they've cooked.

Fill a roasting pan with an inch or so of water. Place beets in pan. Be sure not to crowd them. Cover with a non-airtight oven-proof lid, or make a lid If you need to by crunching up a sheet of aluminium foil so that it just fits inside the dish. 

If you need to, use two dishes, rotating their positions in the oven halfway through the roasting time.  The beets are done when a paring knife slips easily all the way to the center.  Four or five medium sized beets will take about 45 minutes.

Not your grandma's beets

Leave beets in their pan to cool for about 15-20 minutes.  When they are warm enough to handle, rub the skins off with your hands or a paper towel.  Holding them under cool running water, or in a basin with cool water will help. Let them cool to room temperature.

Cut beets into slices, wedges or dices depeding on your likes.  Toss them in a bowl with 1/4 cup good olive oil and 2 Tbsp. or so of white wine vineagar or champagne vinegar. Add coarse salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste. 
Add freshly chopped herbs to taste, if you like; a Tablesoon or so should be all you'll need, but add it to taste.  Subtle herbs like Thyme and Sage work well with yellow or Golden beets; stronger ones like Rosemary and Taragon work better with dark red beets, but use what you like.  Fresh flat-leaf parsley is always a welcome taste regardless of what kind you use.