Warm Duck Salad with Crackly-Topped Beetroot

There are not many surprises in a domestic kitchen when you've spent several decades cooking the same thing over and over. This one, however, astonished and delighted me: if you roast small par-cooked beetroot that are still attached to thumb-length leaf stalks, those stalks will dry out over an hour or so into lovely, sweet twigs with a most satisfying crunch.

Here, I've combined the crackly-topped beetroot with warm slices of rosy duck, some dark salad leaves and a scattering of dried cranberries to make a winter salad of great simplicity.

Duck breasts are eye-wateringly expensive, so I don't often buy them, but this recipe won't ruin your budget because you can stretch just two breasts between four people.

I never boil beetroot because I don't like the way all the ruby-red goodness leaches into the water, but I have to admit that I'm often infuriated at how long it takes to roast even small beetroot to a state of tender, sweet and slightly shrunken deliciousness.

When I was making this salad, I took a shortcut and blasted them in the microwave oven before roasting them.  I've never tried this before, but it worked very well, and it slashed the roasting time by at least an hour. (Thank you to my friends Mark and Julie Stevenson for showing me their method!)

You could make a complicated dressing, perhaps with some spicy or citrussy or sweet element (such as pomegranate syrup) to drizzle over this salad, but I think a spritz of lemon juice and a lick of grassy olive oil is all that is needed to bring out the earthy, metallic flavours of duck, rocket, watercress, spinach and beetroot.

Dried cranberries are available at most supermarkets and health shops; this is also good with a mixture of dried cherries and goji berries.

---

Warm Duck Salad with Crackly-Topped Beetroot

8 young beetroot, leaves still attached
extra-virgin olive oil, for sprinkling and dressing
flaky sea salt and milled black pepper
2 large boneless duck breasts, skin on
mixed dark salad leaves - rocket, watercress and baby spinach (enough for four people)
1/3 cup (80 ml) soft dried cranberries
6 spring onions, white and pale green parts only, finely sliced
a large lemon

Heat the oven to 190 ºC and switch on the fan.  Trim off the leafy tops of the beetroot, leaving stalks 6 cm long attached to each one. Place them in a small ovenproof dish and cover loosely with clingfilm.  Microwave the beetroot on high for 12 minutes. Drain off any liquid, drizzle with two or three tablespoons of olive oil and season generously with salt and milled black pepper. Toss well so everything is coated.

Roast the beetroot, uncovered, for 45 to 60 minutes, or until they are very tender and somewhat shrunken, and the stalks are crisp.

In the meantime, lightly season the duck skin with salt and pepper. Place the duck breasts, skin side down, in a cold frying pan. Turn on the flame under the pan to its lowest setting, and cook the breasts slowly and gently for 10 minutes, without disturbing them. This long heating process will help to render the fat.

Drain off most of the fat (keep it for roasting potatoes!), turn up the heat under the pan to medium high and fry the duck breasts skin-side down for another 4-5 minutes, or until the skin is very crisp and golden.  Flip the breasts over in the pan, turn down the heat a little and fry them for another 4-6 minutes, or until they are cooked, but still slightly rosy in the middle. Don't be afraid to cut a sneaky slit into the thickest part of the breast to check for doneness - you will lose a little juice this way, but this is a lesser evil than tough, overdone duck.

Remove the breasts from the heat, put them on a plate, cover them loosely with tin foil and let them rest for five minutes.

Make a bed of salad leaves on a large platter. Cut the duck into slices and slice the beetroot in half lengthways.  Arrange the duck slices and beetroot on top of the greens and scatter with the dried cranberries and spring onion slices

Squeeze the lemon over the salad and drizzle lightly with olive oil. Season the salad with salt and milled black pepper, to taste, and serve immediately.

Serves 4. 

Print Friendly

Roasted Pressed Beetroot with Sour Cream, for a Christmas buffet

The simplest recipe you can imagine, using only a few humble ingredients. Beetroot is slow-roasted overnight with some woody herbs, olive oil, salt and pepper, pressed for a several hours in a mould, then tipped out and served, oxblood-red and darkly delicious, with a cool topping of sour cream and snipped fresh chives.

What I wanted from this vegetable dish was that it should look as evocatively festive as a dark, fruity Christmas pudding, but at the same time have a pure earthy taste, with not a hint of the aggressive vinegar that so often accompanies beetroot dishes.

This slow-roasting method draws the moisture out of the beetroot and concentrates its flavours beautifully, while a simple accompaniment of sour cream, natural yoghurt or crème fraîche adds a hint of acidity.

If you like your beetroot with real zip, by all means add lemon juice, lemon zest, horseradish, a little garlic, or whatever takes your fancy, to either the beetroot or the topping. But please, not Balsamic vinegar. It's far too strong a flavour for what is quite a subtle dish.

This looks festive if made in round pudding bowl, but you could use a non-stick loaf tin. If you're not confident about the beetroot coming out in one piece, line the bowl or tin with clingfilm.

Keep the dish at room temperature, if you can, and add the sour cream at the last minute. The first time I made this, I used yoghurt and put the leftovers in the fridge overnight. The next morning, the yoghurt topping had turned a fetching Barbie-pink colour.

The fresh little beetroot leaves in the picture are from a mini-crop I've been picking from for weeks now, and they come from a single, elderly beetroot that I planted after I found it sprouting in the vegetable bin. I don't know why it hasn't occurred to me to do this before: if I'd planted six old beets, I'd have overflowing salad bowls by now. (I did stand the bulb with its roots in water for a week before I planted it; see picture above.)

Oven-Roasted Pressed Beetroot with Sour Cream
6 large beetroot
extra-virgin olive oil for sprinkling
a sprig each of fresh thyme and rosemary
two bay leaves
sea salt and milled black pepper

To top:
sour cream, or yoghurt, or crème fraîche
snipped fresh chives

Preheat the oven to 160°C. Trim the leafy tops off the beetroot, leaving 2 cm of stalk intact. Wipe the beetroot with a cloth, but don't wash them. Cut the beetroot in half. Put them on a double layer of foil, sprinkle with some olive oil and dust with salt and pepper. Place the bay leaves and the sprigs of rosemary and thyme on top. Close the parcel with a double pleat, place on a baking sheet and bake for two hours at 160°C. Now open the parcel by peeling back the foil. Turn the oven to its lowest setting - 50°C is ideal - and leave overnight, or until the beetroot are very tender and slightly shrunken (see picture below).

Remove the packet from the oven, discard the herbs and allow to cool.

Trim the beetroot of stalks and roots, slip off their skins, and cut into large cubes. Add more salt, if necessary, and pile the cubes into an oiled bowl just big enough to hold them all. Cover the surface with foil or clingfilm, and then with a saucer or lid that fits neatly into the bowl. (If you're using a loaf tin, cut out a piece of heavy cardboard of the right size and cover it with tin foil). Weigh down with something rather heavy - few stacked tins, or large stone or brick - and allow to stand at room temperature for at least eight hours, or overnight.

Peel off the foil, and, using a sharp knife, gently loosen the edges of the pressed beetroot. Place a large platter on top of the bowl and invert. Tap or shake the bowl to release.  Top with a flurry of sour cream and snipped fresh chives.

Serves 4-6 as a side dish

Print Friendly

Borscht in Small Glasses: Iced Beetroot and Gin Shots

Iced Beetroot and Gin Shots

Here's an idea for a zinging cocktail: cool, earthy beetroot soup, spiked with gin and served in smoking-cold shot glasses. I made this, last weekend, for my husband's 50th birthday party. I laughed my pants off when a guest (my sister, I think it was) said: 'What's good about this recipe is that it contains Vitamin C, and Vitamin G.'

Vitamin G being, of course, neat gin, a nutritious basic foodstuff for anyone over the age of 40. Or fifty.

Earlier that morning, in a pre-party kitchen frenzy, I'd wrapped six tennis-ball-sized beetroot in foil and put them in the oven, with a view to making my beetroot hummous. When I took the parcel out of the oven at noon, I was feeling grumpy, footsore and frazzled, and wondering how the hell I'd feed the 40 people expected at the party, considering I'd made only three trays of  hors d'œuvres (or horse-da-oovrays, as they are known in my family).

But my mood improved when I opened the foil and inhaled the glorious scents of earth, water, stone and blood: what I craved, I realised on the spot, was a borscht (of corscht!); very cold, with ginsk. And spring onionsk.

If you've read this far down, you must be a lover of beetroot.  And, if so, I don't think I need to sing its praises to you.

Here's what Tom Robbins had to say about beetroot in his novel Jitterbug Perfume:  "The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent, not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious." 

You do need a good vegetable stock to give this soup some depth. In this recipe, the peelings of the baked beetroot are combined with basic vegetable flavourings to make a tasty broth.

A big mistake I made, on the eve of this party, was that I didn't chill the soup for long enough. It needs to be very cold (but, then again, not so icy that it numbs your tastebuds).  Next time, I'll chill the shot glasses in the freezer before I serve it.

Beetroot and Gin Shots
6 large beetroot, or 12 smaller ones

For the stock:
1 stick celery, chopped
3 stalks parsley
a large carrot, scraped and roughly chopped
1 onion, peeled and quartered
1 clove
1  bay leaf
6 peppercorns
½ tsp (2.5 ml) caraway seeds
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
1.2  litres water
beetroot trimmings [see recipe]

To serve:
white pepper
1 tsp (5 ml) Tabasco sauce
300 ml gin, or more, to taste
small spring onions, trimmed

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Trim the leafy tops off the beetroot, leaving 5 cm of stalk intact. Wipe the beetroot with a cloth, but don't wash, peel or cut them. Wrap them in a double layer of foil and place in the oven.  Bake until completely tender when pierced with a sharp knife (how long this will take will depend on the size and age of the beetroot; for baby beetroot, an hour is enough. Very elderly beets can take up to 3 hours.)  Remove the packet from the oven and allow to cool.

Put a piece of newspaper or greaseproof paper on your kitchen counter. Trim the beetroot of stalks and roots, slip off their skins, and set all these trimmings to one side. Quarter the peeled beetroot and place in the goblet of a liquidiser.  Blitz until you have a fine purée (if the mixture is too thick for the blades to turn, add a little water).  Pour into a large bowl and refrigerate.  Now make the stock:  put the reserved beetroot trimmings into a saucepan and add the remaining stock ingredients. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for an hour, topping up with water every now and then if necessary, and skimming off any foam.

Strain the stock through a colander onto the chilled beetroot purée.  Add the Tabasco sauce and season with white pepper, and a little more salt, to taste. Stir well.

Now pass the soup through a fine sieve. Place in the fridge again and chill for two to three hours. An hour before serving, place the shot glasses and the gin in the freezer.  Remove the soup from the fridge and stir in the cold gin.  Put the soup into a jug with a sharp pouring nozzle and fill each glass almost to the brim.  Add a spring onion to each glass. Serve immediately.

This recipe makes 36 shots of 60 ml (4 T) each, or two litres of soup (which will serve 8 people, as a starter). Print Friendly