VeggieTalk

In last month’s issue of Vegetarian Times, readers answered the question “what is your least favorite vegetable, and why?” A few responders named beets—one said they “taste like dirt.” I can understand loving them or hating them, but dirt? Perhaps they simply were not washed well enough.

I love beets. I especially like them fresh from a farm market or from my CSA. If just picked and smallish, they’re just about the sweetest veggie I know of. The easiest way to cook them is to rinse well (yes, they are roots and grow in dirt!), leave about an inch of stem on, and put them in a deep heatproof container with a half an inch of water. Then, microwave, starting at 2 minutes per beet if small and working on up. Best to use less time, check frequently, and cook until each beet can just pierced with a knife. Once cool enough to handle, you can peel them right into the garbage and make less of a mess.

If the beets are very fresh, I like to serve them just as is, diced or sliced, or tossed into salad. If they’ve aged a bit, they may need a bit of help, and a combination of lemon juice and a sweetener (agave nectar is my choice; or honey for non-vegans) perks up the flavor. In winter, I like to add beets to roasted root vegetable combos, even though the red variety color everything, and peeling and cutting them is a pain. Other flavors that marry well with beets are orange, tarragon, ginger, and mint.

A reader commented (see comments, below) and left a delicious recipe for a grated beet salad. That reminded me, indeed, I do like to use beets raw in grated salads. I did a post on Great Grated Salads which is in the recipe archives toward the bottom of the page.

Pictured above are golden beets. I just can’t resist these when I see them, even though the ones I got yesterday are kind of gnarly and sprouting. They definitely wouldn’t win a beauty contest. I’d say it has been quite a while since they’ve seen the soil from which they came. Still, they tasted fine—really smooth and sweet (more so than even the freshest red beet). Chiogga beets, which are striped red and white, are also supposed to be awesome, though I’ve yet to try them. Both golden and chiogga bleed far less than red beets.