Fun with Beta Vulgaris: Orange and Beet Salad & Easy Beet Raita

Beta vulgaris, cooked and sliced

A box filled with dirt-caked beets appeared in my kitchen one day not too long ago. Obviously, these dusty orbs did not come from a grocery store. They seemed to have leaped directly from their garden bed onto my kitchen counter without a thought of washing up before dinner. As it turned out, they came from White House Fruit Farm in Canfield, Ohio, courtesy of my upstairs housemates.

I eat beets very rarely. The truth is, I never think of them or seek them out. They usually come to me as these beets came to me: out of the clear blue sky. But whenever I do encounter them, I'm struck by their sweet, tender flesh and their wild, wild color.

[This babble continues...]

I should eat more of them, I tell myself. After all, beets are very good for you. According to Miami Dade College's CROPS: Earth Ethics website, beets are “rich in natural sugar, sodium, sulphur, chlorine, iodine, copper and vitamin B1, B2, C and bioflavonoids." So, if you're looking for a good source of dietary copper, reach for those beets! 

Beets can be really, really ugly, though. Before they’re trimmed and cooked, they look an awful lot like little headless rats, don’t they? Not particularly appetizing.

But wrap them in foil and bake them (60 to 90 minutes, depending on size, at 375 degrees Fahrenheit) or boil them in water (30-40 minutes), and slip them from their skins, and LOOK:

They’re rubies! Shiny and dense, graced with a pattern of concentric rings, they’re simply stunning to look at. What better place to showcase these gems but in a salad?

Mel's Orange & Beet Salad
Juice of 1 orange (or 1/4 cup of orange juice)
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
Salt & Pepper (to taste)
3 oranges, sectioned (click here for instructions)
3 medium beets, boiled, skinned, sliced into half moons
8 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
bunch of kalamata olives
bunch of leafy greens

Combine orange juice, vinegar, oil, garlic, salt and pepper and whisk (or shake in a container) until the mixture is emulsified. Arrange the beet moons, orange sections, olives and feta on four beds of leafy greens. Drizzle with the orange-balsamic dressing. (Serves 4)

Most of my associations with beets are related to that brief time (December 1999 through the summer of 2001) when I ran a restaurant and bakery on Vashon Island in Washington state. We had two beet dishes on the menu back then. One was simply pickled beets (we pickled both the red and the yellow beets separately, then plated them together); they were part of our hummus platter of homemade chickpea spread, warmed pita bread, raw seasonal vegetables, kalamata olives, feta cheese and sprigs of fresh basil. The other beet offering was red flannel hash (made with corned beef, red potatoes, onions and beets, then topped off with a poached egg). 

According to page 89 of Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants, “the root of the chard” (a.k.a. the beet) is mentioned as a medicinal plant by the Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides (40–70 A.D.) but they do not really start to appear in homo sapien recipe books until the late Middle Ages when—by natural selection or human intervention--the formerly long and skinny beet root started to change, becoming fatter, rounder and generally bigger. 

It was interesting to find out that the beet probably originated in the Mediterranean, though, because what I was wanting was something Middle Eastern or South Asian. I went to the Internet for recipe inspiration, but Google just kept serving up the same-old same-old: borscht, borscht, pickled beets, borscht, red flannel hash, borscht, borscht and borscht. 

This is my housemate's dwindling supply of homemade borscht. It's absolutely delicious and much lighter than the usual beef and sour cream concoction. Thanks for sharing, housemate!

Finally, I settled on a simple beet raita to go with some Indian snacks I was making. There does not seem to be--as far as I could tell--a recipe on the Internet for beet raita. But certainly I can not be the first person to think of the idea.

A raita is often described as an Indian "yogurt salad," but I never liked that analogy. Although they usually involve cut-up fruits and/or vegetables, they are more of a condiment than a salad. Often, a raita is served up as a dipping sauce for Indian appetizers or grilled meat kabobs. Sometimes they are served with spicy curry dishes, because the cold, dairy-based raita is a sure fix for fire-in-the-mouth. Although many recipes for raita call for spices, I tend to prefer the milder recipes. (This is probably because I like my curries ablaze with capsicum heat, and a non-spicy raita is the perfect contrast.)

Mel's Easy Beet Raita

This raita is a take-off on my usual cucumber raita. I merely substituted grated beet for grated cucumber, as well as finely chopped green onion for cilantro leaves. 

• Trim and boil two medium beets in water for 30-40 minutes, or until fork-tender. Allow them to cool, then remove the skins and grate them.
• Add the grated beets to 8 oz. of good Greek-style plain yogurt.
• Add one finely chopped green onion (both white and green parts)
• Plus one clove of finely minced garlic.
• Salt to taste.
• Mix well. 
• Serve cold as a side dish or condiment with Indian appetizers, curries or grilled meat.

Oh. My. What a color!

The sweetness of the beets and coolness of the yogurt was a perfect accompaniment to the curry puffs (veggie samosa filling in puff pastry) and tandoori-style chicken that I was serving that night. The BEST was the combination of beet raita with spicy chicken, but I don't think I'd ever serve them together at a formal event.

I mean... Look at those colors. Orange red just does NOT go with neon fuchsia!

Beet raita and cucumber raita (top), tandoori-style chicken and "curry puffs" (samosa filling baked in puff pastry)