Christmas Gammon with a Beetroot & Wasabi Glaze

A sweet blazing-pink beetroot syrup with a sting of wasabi is the glaze I've chosen for my Christmas gammon this year. To bring together the earthy flavours of beetroot and the nose-blast of wasabi, I've added crunchy pink peppercorns and a handful of fresh pomegranate seeds.

Christmas Gammon with a Beetroot & Wasabi Glaze, studded
with pink peppercorns and fresh pomegranate seeds. Plate by
my uncle David Walters, master potter of Franschhoek.

Both the peppercorns and the pomegranate seeds featured in my Christmas 2012 gammon recipe and I'm so smitten by the combination of brittle-textured warmth and bursting sweetness that I've used them again this year. I don't think I'll ever stud a gammon with cloves again because, really, what's the point? Nobody's going to to chew on them (unless you have an elderly relative with severe toothache), and all you need do to achieve a subtle Christmassy clove aroma is to pop a few into the gammon's simmering stock.

This is the fourth gammon glaze recipe I've developed for this blog over the same number of years, and I always feel a bit anxious when November rolls around because I receive more queries and feedback about glazing a gammon than any other topic. This year I pondered for several weeks over a choice of glaze, and eventually inspiration came from a short magazine piece I was asked to contribute to Food & Entertaining magazine.  It's a food love letter to my grandmother Peggy, and in it I mention the wonderful combination of sliced ham and pickled beetroot, which I ate as a child in the Sixties in Peggy's garden.

When you slice the gammon, the shocking-pink beetroot glaze penetrates
 the scoring marks. Serve with dobbles of wasabi and boiled baby potatoes.

A good jab of horseradish really brings the blood-and-earth flavours of beetroot alive, but instead of using the creamed variety, or fresh root (which I couldn't find in the shops), I whisked some Japanese wasabi paste into the glaze once I'd finished reducing it.

To my disappointment, the wasabi lost much of its fire during the glazing process, and faded like a sullen teenager into the background. So I doubled the quantity of wasabi from one teaspoon to two the next time I tested the recipe, which helped a bit, but still the flavour was elusive.

I therefore recommend that you serve this (in thick slices) with generous blobs of good-quality wasabi paste.

I have given detailed instructions below for simmering a gammon in stock, but please use your common sense here. I find that the cooking times given on the packaging for bone-out raw gammon (usually 55 minutes per kilogram) are excessive. This year, I cut 45 minutes off the recommended cooking time, and even then the gammon seemed a little overcooked.

I've had good results with cooking gammon in a roasting bag.

I've tried all sorts of methods of cooking inexpensive Christmas gammons - slow-seething in stock, baking under foil and paper, slow-cooking in a crockpot, overnight cooking in a roasting bag -  and have come to the conclusion that everything depends on the quality of the ham.

For this recipe, I used inexpensive boneless gammons from Checkers for testing purposes, and they were okay, with a good flavour, albeit a bit too salty for my taste.  But there is a certain stringiness about mass-produced hams that cannot be fixed, not matter how carefully you cook them. I suspect that the gammons I bought this year had been frozen for several months, then thawed and placed on the shelf. I can't be certain of this, but there was a tell-tale coarseness and stringiness about the flesh that was most disappointing.

For my family's Christmas feast this year, I am not going to skimp on the gammon. A good quality gammon should be fine-textured and moist, with a deep rosy pink colour and a good layer of snowy white soft fat.

>> To see my gammon glazes of Christmasses past, plus three other recipes using the leftovers of a gammon, please scroll to the end of this page.

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Christmas Gammon with a Beetroot & Wasabi Glaze

For the gammon and its stock:

one x 2.8 to 3 kg bone-out raw gammon
1 can (340 ml) ginger ale
1 can (340 ml) lager of your choice
2 bay leaves, dried or fresh
3 cloves
10 peppercorns
1 star anise
a small wedge of lemon, skin on
a sliver of fresh ginger
½ tsp (2.5 ml) coriander seeds
1 onion, cut in half, skin on
1 large carrot, cut in thirds
a few stalks of parsley
water, to cover

For the glaze:

2 medium-sized beetroot
3 Tbsp (45 ml) water, plus an extra half-cup [see recipe]
5 Tbsp (75 ml) white sugar
2 tsp (10 ml) wasabi paste
a squeeze of lemon juice

To garnish:

2 Tbsp (30 ml) pink peppercorns
the seeds of a pomegranate (or dried pomegranate ariels that you've soaked in water for 30 minutes)

Boiling a gammon in stock with some Christmassy
flavours. Top up the pot with water now and then,
 and skim off any foam as it rises. 

Put the gammon into a big deep pot and add all the remaining stock ingredients. The gammon should be covered in liquid to a depth of 2 cm.

Bring the gammon to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer at a very low burble, covered with a tilted lid, until it is cooked through (follow the timing instructions on the packaging, but please note my  comments above).

 Every now and then top up the pot with more water, and skim off any mocha-coloured scum as it rises.

In the meantime, make the glaze. Grate the beetroot, skin and all, on the coarse side of a cheese grater.  Put the gratings into a large microwave-safe dish, add 3 Tbsp (45 ml) water, and cover with clingfilm. Microwave on high for 8-10 minutes, or until the beetroot is tender. Alternatively, simmer the grated beetroot and water over a gentle heat for 15-20 minutes, or until tender.

Cool the beetroot for a few minutes, tip it into a sieve set over a bowl and drain well, pressing down on the pulp with the back of a spoon to extract all the juices.

Discard the pulp (or save it for stirring into a hummous or creamy dip) and pour the liquid into a saucepan. Add 5 Tbsp (75 ml) sugar, plus an additional ½ cup (125 ml) water. Set the pan over a high heat and cook at a fast boil for about 15 minutes, or until the liquid is syrupy, and has reduced down to half a cup (yes, go ahead and measure it!).  Whisk in the wasabi paste and add a squeeze of lemon juice.

When the gammon is cooked, remove it from the pot, cover with clingfilm and let it sit for two hours on the countertop. Alternatively - and I recommend this method, as it allows the meat to cool and contract, without drying out - let your gammon cool overnight in its stock. (I always freeze the stock in small plastic boxes for use in future soups and stews.)

To glaze the gammon: set your oven grill, at least 20 minutes ahead of time,  to its highest setting.  Place the meat in a large roasting pan.

Carefully pull away the thick skin from the top of the gammon to expose the fat layer. Discard the skin, or give it to the dogs. If it's a very fatty gammon, use a sharp knife held horizontal to the fat to shave away excess blubber. I like to retain a fairly generous layer of fat - it is Christmas, after all - but you can shave it back to a depth of about 3 mm if you'd like a leaner ham.

Score the fat in a diamond pattern, using the tip of a very sharp knife. I use my index finger to gauge the distance between score marks.

Now pour the beetroot glaze over your gammon. Don't worry if most of it runs off - this will be fixed during the glazing process. Place the pan about 10 cm under the blazing-hot grill.

This is the trickiest part of glazing a gammon. You will need to watch it like a hawk, because the tallest areas will brown - or burn - first. I always set a stool in front of the open oven door, put on a pair of padded gloves and sit there patiently tilting and turning the roasting pan to make sure every part of it is bubbling and caramelised.  Every 3 minutes or so, I use a big spoon to scoop up some of the glaze from the corners of the pan and trickle it over the gammon.

When your gammon is merrily sizzling and the fat layer looks caramelised all over, remove the tray from the oven, place it on the countertop and tuck a folded-up cloth underneath one end to set it at a tilt.  Continue for the next 10 minutes scooping and dribbling the run-off glaze gathering in the pan's corners over the gammon, until it is coated with a thick, shiny burnish.

Scatter the pomegranate seeds and pink peppercorns all over the gammon, while it is till sticky.

Serve warm with dabs of wasabi, boiled baby potatoes and fresh green leaves, or cold with bread, butter and pickles.

Serves 6-8 as a main course with veggies and/or salad. 

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My other gammon glazes, plus three recipes using the leftovers of a gammon:

Christmas Gammon with a Pomegranate and Pink Peppercorn Glaze

Christmas Gammon with a Sticky Orange & Ginger Glaze

Christmas Gammon Glazed with Brandy & Coke

And here's what to do with left-over gammon:

• Easy-Peasy Pea & Gammon Soup
• Hearty Soup with Tomatoes, Lentils and Gammon (scroll to the end of the page for the recipe)
• Luxurious Broccoli & Cheese with Gammon and a Parmesan Crust

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Roasted Golden Beetroot with Spinach, Bacon & Ruby Grapefruit

A warm salad of slow-roasted beetroot with wilted spinach and crisped bacon bits, sprinkled with olive oil and flecks of ruby grapefruit.

Roasted Golden Beetroot with Spinach & Bacon.

Golden beetroot is a hybrid popular these days among chefs and foodsters. I've tasted it a few times in restaurants, and it hasn't blown my skirt up. In each dish I've tried, this vegetable has been curiously tasteless, with none of the bloody metallic depth of ordinary red beetroot. (Then again, these dishes consisted of pretentious stacks, or were arrayed in wafer-thin raw slices and topped off with 'foam' or 'air'. )

However, the organic specimens in the picture above knocked my socks off with their glorious sunset colours and sweet, earthy flavours.

I bought these beauties in a loose bunch from my local Woolworths in Hout Bay. I was very pleased to see them on the supermarket shelf, because I've only ever come across them at farmers' markets. I also bought a bunch of regular beetroot, and hurried home to sling them in the oven.

Open-roasting red and golden beetroot with a little olive oil and thyme.

Slow-roasting is the way to go with beetroot, I reckon. There is quite a lot of shrinkage, but this method brilliantly concentrates and intensifies their flavour.

I was planning to make a salad with fresh greens, but the rocket, watercress and lettuce loafing around in my fridge's veggie drawer didn't look perky. Instead, I wilted a big bunch of fresh Swiss chard in a pan, squeezed it dry, then arranged it on a plate along with some hot bacon bits (for smokiness and crunch) and a handful of dried cranberries (for sweetness). Then I doused everything with olive olive oil and a few dabs of good balsamic vinegar.

A bunch of beautiful golden beetroot

Beads of blood-red ruby grapefruit are a final and pleasing finish to this salad. This is a flavour combination that wouldn't normally have occurred to me, but as it happened I'd just cut up a grapefruit on the same board I was using to slice the beetroot. What an astonishing mouth-surprise it was to taste bacon, beetroot and grapefruit together as I picked bits off my chopping board.

You can leave this out if you like, but I think you will be most intrigued by the exciting spark of the grapefruit.

If you can't find golden beetroot, feel confident using ordinary red beetroot in this recipe.

Roasted Golden Beetroot with Spinach, Bacon & Ruby Grapefruit

4 golden beetroot
4 red beetroot
4 Tbsp (60 ml) olive oil, for roasting
a few sprigs of fresh thyme
salt and milled black pepper
2 large bunches of spinach or Swiss Chard
8 rashers streaky bacon
2 Tbsp (60 ml) dried cranberries [optional]
a ruby grapefuit

For the dressing: 

5 Tbsp (75 ml) olive oil
2 Tbsp (30 ml) good balsamic vinegar
salt and milled black pepper, to taste

Heat the oven to 190 ºC.  Trim the beetroot stalks so just 1 cm remains, then cut them in half lengthways. Place cut-side up in a roasting tray lined with baking paper.

Sprinkle with the olive oil and thyme sprigs, then season to taste with salt and pepper.  Roast, uncovered, for about two hours, or until the beetroot looks slightly shrunken and is very soft.

Remove the beetroot from the oven and set on the counter for 10 minutes, or until they are cool enough to handle with bare fingers. Trim off the stalks and any hairy roots. If you like, you can rub off the skins at this point, but I don't bother with that if I'm using young beets. Cut the beetroot into wedges.

Peel the grapefuit, remove two segments, peel off the membranes and pull these into very small pieces.  Set aside.

Twenty minutes before the beetroot finishes roasting, thoroughly rinse the spinach or Swiss chard, trim off any fibrous stalks and put it, still wet, into a large saucepan. Turn on a medium-high heat under the pot and cook for 3-5 minutes, or until the leaves are soft and wilted.  Tip the leaves into a colander, let them drain for five minutes, then squeeze them between the palms of your hands to remove any excess moisture. Set aside.

While the spinach is cooling, cut the bacon rashers into a fine dice and fry them over a high heat for 4-5 minutes, or until crisp. Drain on a piece of kitchen paper.

Arrange the warm spinach leaves in a circle on a platter and top them with the beetroot wedges.  Sprinkle over the cranberries, grapefruit flecks and hot bacon pieces.

Dribble a little olive oil over the salad, and pour the rest around its edges to form a golden puddle.  Sprinkle the balsamic vinegar over the top.  Serve immediately.

Serves 4 as a starter. 

A good fruity olive oil and a few droplets of balsamic vinegar are
all that's necessary to dress this warm salad.

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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.

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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. 



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Sheet Mozzarella Rolls with Beetroot, Rocket, Lemon and Marjoram

I was intrigued to come across these beautiful sheets of mozzarella, which are produced in Cape Town by Puglia Cheese, a little family firm that has taken the local foodie community by storm. Puglia provided a selection of their exquisite (and I mean drop-dead delicious) cheeses for tasting at the second Neill Anthony Masterclass (more about that soon), which I organised with my friend Judy.

While Judy was at the factory picking up the cheeses, she bought a kilo of this fabulous sheet mozzarella, and we shared it.

Quite apart from the fact that this is authentic Italian mozzarella of the highest quality,  this product is very special because it is so versatile; its delicate, milky deliciousness is a perfect foil for punchy flavours. You can add just about anything you like to a mozzarella roll: the classic Caprese combination of tomato and basil, or fresh herbs of your choice, or garlic, lemon, olives, capers, anchovies, roasted peppers, chillies and other singing flavours of the Mediterranean. I've just make a second roll, which is firming in the fridge as we speak, containing fresh sorrel and beetroot leaves, lemon zest, white anchovies, capers, garlic and pepper.

Making  these canapes took me just a few minutes, although I did put the roll in the fridge for an hour to firm up. (And no, I didn't matchstick the beetroot myself! I took them, and the rocket,  from a packet of Woolworths's new beetroot and cranberry salad.)

Do leave the rolls, once you've sliced them, at room temperature for half an hour or so, to lose their chill, and place them on the biscuits or crostini just before serving them, as the cheese tends to weep.

You can spread the filling all over the cheese to achieve a pin-wheel effect, but I found that this made the 'sausage' of cheese difficult to roll neatly.

Sheet Mozzarella Rolls with Beetroot, Rocket, Lemon and Marjoram

a sheet of fresh mozzarella
the finely grated zest of a small lemon
a large clove of garlic, finely crushed
3 T (45 ml) olive oil, plus more for topping
salt and freshly milled black pepper
2 T (30 ml) fresh marjoram leaves (or oregano)
fresh rocket leaves
fresh beetroot, cut into matchsticks

To serve:
olive oil
crackers or crostini

Place a sheet of clingfilm or baking paper on your kitchen counter and smear it with some olive oil. Sprinkle with a little salt and freshly milled black pepper. Pat the mozzarella sheet quite dry using kitchen paper, and place it on the clingfilm.

In a small bowl, mix together the lemon zest, garlic and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Smear the mixture evenly all over the mozzarella sheet. Arrange the marjoram leaves, rocket leaves and beetroot sticks  along the edge of the mozzarella sheet closest to you. Now pick up the edge of the clingfilm and nudge the sheet into a roll, as you would do if you were making sushi. Roll, away from you, into a neat sausage. Wrap clingfilm round the roll and tightly twist the ends in opposite directions to make a tight 'salami'.

Place in the fridge to firm up for an hour. Now, using a very sharp knife, slice directly through the plastic to make discs. Place on a plate for half an hour to bring to room temperature. Just before serving, arrange the discs on biscuits or crostini and drizzle with olive oil. Serve immediately.

Makes about 15.

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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

Beetroot Hummous with Wilted Greens, Feta and Lemon

Blood, iron, rubies and cold water running over pebbles come to mind as I fall like a deprived vampire on this earthy feast. Sorry to come over all po-hetical, but the mysterious deliciousness of brilliant-cerise beetroot hummous piled on dark, lemony greens sends my brain-buds into rhapsodies.

Beetroot Hummous with Wilted Greens, Feta and Lemon

And do you like this gorgeous red-glass plate? (Er, it might actually be yours, because I can't remember ever having bought it, and found it in my cupboards during a turf-out. If it is yours, may I keep it?) The red of this dish was so intense that my cheapie camera couldn't cope with it, which is why this picture looks rather redly surreal.

I developed this recipe by combining two dishes I  have so enjoyed this year: Mike Karamanof's fresh beetroot greens with olive oil dressing, and the lovely beetroot, cumin and garlic dip my sister Sophie made me last time I was in Cape Town.

I've added chickpeas and tahina to the beetroot to make a more substantial dip, and feta cheese to the greens for a lovely, creamy and salty contrast.  Any sort of dark, leafy green will do for this recipe: I used a combination of Swiss chard and beetroot greens, but it would also be good with baby spinach leaves, pak choy, or similar.

If you don't feel like eating wilted greens, make up a batch of beetroot hummous, anoint with a good slick of olive oil and cover with cling film. It will last up to four days in the fridge, and is just heavenly spread on toast, piled on a baked potato or spooned directly from the dish into your mouth, for breakfast.

I  haven't given exact quantities here: taste the dish as you go along. This dish is best served warm.

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Beetroot Hummous with Wilted Greens, Feta and Lemon

For the hummous:
6 medium-sized beetroot bulbs, untrimmed
6 fat cloves fresh garlic, unpeeled
salt and milled black pepper
a little olive oil for baking
1 Tbsp (15 ml) tahina (sesame-seed paste)
a can of chickpeas, drained of their liquid
1 and 1/2 tsp (7.5 ml) freshly ground cumin
the juice of a lemon
about 125 ml (half a cup) olive oil

For the greens:
a large bunch of young Swiss chard, baby spinach, beetroot greens or similar
the juice of a lemon
olive oil
salt and milled black pepper
feta cheese

First make the hummous. Preheat the oven to 180° C. Lightly scrub the beetroot bulbs to remove any grit, but don't trim or peel them. Put them, and five cloves of unpeeled garlic, on a large sheet of tin foil. Add a pinch of salt and a grinding of pepper, and drizzle over a little olive oil. Fold up the edges of the foil and seal tightly to make a loose parcel. Place the parcel in the hot oven and bake for an hour or two (the time will depend on the age of your beetroot) or until the beetroot is quite soft when pierced with a sharp knife.

Trim off the tails and stalks of the beetroot. Cut into cubes and place in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade (if you're making  the hummous on its own, reserve half a beetroot, and a few chickpeas, for garnishing).  Squeeze the softened garlic cloves out of their papery casings and add to the food processor bowl along with the tahina, chickpeas, cumin, lemon juice and half  (about 60 ml) of the olive oil. Blitz the mixture, at high speed, to a purée, adding just enough extra olive oil to create a smooth, thick paste.   Season with salt and pepper, to taste.  If the hummous needs a little more zing, add another squeeze of lemon juice. Decant into a bowl. (If you're serving this as a dip on its own, top with the finely diced reserved beetroot, a few whole chickpeas, a dusting of cumin and/or cayenne pepper and olive oil.) Cover with clingfilm and set aside.

Now prepare the greens. Heat a big saucepan, wok or frying pan. Trim away any very thick stalks (but leave all the slender remaining stalks on). Rinse the leaves well under cold running water, give them a good shake, and put them, with water still clinging to their leaves, in the hot pan. Cook for seven to ten minutes, tossing frequently, or until the stalks are tender ( but have a little crunch remaining) and most of the liquid has evaporated. Don't worry if the greens begin to lose their fresh green colour as the stalks cook: this is vegetable dish, not a salad!  Remove from the heat, drain off any remaining liquid and dress with lemon juice and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and toss well.

Swirl the the greens onto a warmed platter and crumble over the feta cheese.  Pile the warm beetroot hummous on top.

Lovely with fresh bread for mopping up the juices.

Serves 6 as a starter or 8 as a side salad.

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A wild craving finds its cure: Beetroot, Cumin and Garlic Dip

I don't often feel like plunging my face into a bowl of food and inhaling it like a starving piglet, but when I tasted the glorious scarletness of this beetroot dip for the first time, the taste pathways in my brain went beserk. There were sighs, there were low moans of pleasure, and there were showers of cortical sparks.

I don't know why my tastebuds (and my brain) were so excited and astonished by this addictive combination of earthy blood-red baby beetroot, warming ground cumin, crème fraîche and garlic, but what I can say is that this is the best dip I've tasted in many years, and that I intend to eat it every day - spread on toast, or over a baked potato, dobbled over a soup, or spooned directly from the bowl - until my body says it's had enough, and it's time to turn to horseradish or bitter chocolate or orange peel, or whatever my brain's flavour-du-jour is.

I first tasted this dip in Hout Bay, Cape Town, last week, when my sister Sophie casually whipped it up as a starter to be served before a delicious Cape-Malay style chicken curry made in advance by her nanny/au pair.

Sophie gave me the basic ingredients, although she couldn't, off-hand, remember the quantities.

So here is my version. If you don't feel like buying and baking fresh beetroot, use pre-prepared cooked fresh beetroot chunks, available in South Africa from Woolworths. But please, don't use pickled or canned beetroot, which tends to be so vinegary. This dish is best with freshly ground, toasted cumin seeds, but you can use pre-powdered cumin if it is very fresh.

Beetroot, Cumin and Garlic Dip

4 small fresh beetroot [or a pack of Woolworths beetroots chunks]
1 t (5 ml) cumin seeds
1 fat clove garlic, peeled and finely crushed
4 T (60 ml) crème fraîche, or sour cream or Greek yoghurt, or a combination
2 T (30 ml) olive oil
a squeeze of lemon juice
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Trim the leafy tops off the beetroot (but don't peel, or cut into, the bulbs), wrap tightly into a parcel of tin foil (or put in a lidded ceramic dish) place in the oven for an hour, or until completely tender when pierced with the point of a sharp knife. Remove the parcel from the oven and allow to cool for half an hour. In the meantime, put the cumin seeds in a frying pan and set over a medium-high heat. Toss the cumin seeds until they are just warmed through and toasty, and then grind them to a fine powder in a mortar or coffee grinder.

Rub the skin off the beetroot with your fingers, cut off the tops and tails, chop roughly and place in a liquidizer or blender. Add the toasted cumin powder, the garlic, the crème fraîche (or yoghurt) and the olive oil and process to a fine puree (or a chunky one, depending on your preference). Taste the mixture: if it seems bland, add a tiny squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Season well with salt and pepper.

Tip the mixture into a bowl and top with a shower of cumin, a lick of olive oil and perhaps a little yoghurt.

Serves 6, as a snack Print Friendly

Fresh Beetroot Greens with Olive Oil Dressing

I fell upon this delicious, simple dish like a starving wolf: I was seized by a deep craving for its metallic greenness, and the earth-blood flavour of its red stalks.

My friends Mike and Michele - whose recipe this is - watched with alarm as I devoured half the bowl, wolfishly licking my chops as I did so.

My pee was a delicate pink all the next day. (One of the other friends at the table, a doctor who is a general practitioner in Johannesburg, told me that she is often faced with patients complaining about blood in their urine. Her first question to them is, 'Have you eaten beetroot recently?').

I cannot think of a vegetable dish I've enjoyed more in the last few years. When I turned 43, about, erm, 1 year ago, I developed a great taste for deep-green leaves, steamed, stir-fried or microwaved and dressed with fruity olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper (or sometimes soy sauce or vinegar).

So profound is my craving for these veg that I would rather eat a tangle of dark greens in a nice dressing than munch on a cold KitKat or a packet of Salt 'n Vinegar crisps. I take this as a sign that my appetite centre has finally reached adulthood.

I've never cooked beetroot greens because I've never seen them sold fresh and crisp at any supermarket. If I do see fresh beetroot in a bundle, the greens have either been torn away and discarded, or are as wilted and sad as a lost sock.

My friends Mike and Michele Karamanof (who are featured, this week, in my South African Food Fundis series; click here for more about them) found these organic beetroot greens at the Jozi Food Market.

I can't give you exact quantities here: taste, and decide.

Fresh Beetroot Greens with Olive Oil Dressing

2 bunches fresh beetroot leaves
water to cover
1 t (5 ml) salt
1 clove garlic, crushed
olive oil
balsamic vinegar (or freshly squeezed lemon juice, to taste)
flaky salt and freshly pepper

Wash the leaves well in cold water to remove any grit, and drain in a colander. If you like, you can chop the stalks into 2-cm lengths. Or leave them whole. Half fill a big pot with water, add the salt, and bring to a rapid boil. Add the beetroot leaves, in batches (to avoid the water going off the boil) and cook until the stems are very tender. Drain in a colander. Tip the hot leaves into a big salad bowl and dress with a generous splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar (or lemon juice, or both, to taste). Season well with salt and pepper.

You can also microwave the leaves. This isn't heresy, and your internal organs will not boil. Click here to read more about microwaving veggies.

If you want slightly crunchier leaves, add the chopped stalks to the boiling salted water first, cook until just tender (poke them with the tip of a sharp knife; they are ready when they offer no resistance), and then add the leaves. Cook until the leaves are just wilted.

Tip into a big, deep salad bowl and serve warm or at room temperature.

Lovely mixed with cooked, sliced beetroot.

Serves 8 as a side dish. Print Friendly

SA Food Fundis II: Michael and Michele Karamanof

Say I had a choice: indulge in an exquisite meal at the finest restaurant in the city, or enjoy a home-cooked Sunday lunch, under a whispering tree, at the home of Parkview couple Mike and Michele Karamanof. No contest: I would head over to my friends' house with a bottle of wine and no regrets.

Maybe I'm getting old and crabby, but I'm fed up with restaurant food in Johannesburg. I can't afford to eat out often, and when I do, I almost always end up feeling ripped off. I do enjoy a slap-up meal at a good family steakhouse or pizza joint, if it's good value for money, but I really resent forking out R800 to R1000 - which is about what it costs to take five people to dinner at an upmarket restaurant these days, excluding wine - for a meal with absurdly stingy portions, pretentious stacked towers of food, dabs of this, drizzles of that, and shriekingly disgusting 'foamed' sauces that look and taste like spit.

All I want is a full plate - or several plates, for that matter - of honest, gutsy, delicious home-cooked food. I want it hot, I want it fresh, and I want it made in a home kitchen by a friend.

Chemical engineer Mike Karamanof and his wife Michele Botha (a graphic designer) have, for many years, and in their spare time, run a small home industry supplying several Johannesburg restaurants with top-quality home-made products, notably superior home-made pesto and tiramisu.

The Karamanofs are small fish in the Johannesburg-Foodie nibbling order: they're not caterers, chefs, restaurateurs or food professionals, but they are still among the best cooks I know. They have an instinctive love of food, they care about fine ingredients, and they understand simple combinations of brilliant flavours.

Welcome to the second of my new series about local South African food fundis!

Michael Karamanof is an ebullient, warm-hearted Greek with a passion for food that borders on obsession. His knowledge of food and ingredients is encyclopaedic: there are few butchers, greengrocers, fishmongers and wine merchants in Johannesburg with whom he isn't on first-name terms. He loves food, he adores wine, and Michael's idea of heaven is whipping on his apron and spending countless deliriously happy hours cooking for friends and family.

Actually, Mike is a complete know-it-all about food, and the only reason he gets away with this insufferable attitude is because he does actually know an enormous amount about food, and especially Mediterranean food. Mike speaks fluent English, Greek, German and French, and can hold a conversation in Italian and several other languages.

Michele Botha, the thoughtful, organisational, highly creative wing of this partnership, and a talented cook herself, is frequently maddened by Mike (the Karamanofs cannot prepare a meal for friends without having a good argument before everyone arrives).

But, back to the food: although they can cook anything, it's simple Greek food that Mike and Michele really adore. And this passion has accelerated since they bought, a year or two ago, a beautiful, tumbledown old house on the Greek island Kythera. The Karamanofs and their son, Leo, try to get back to the old house twice a year. Most of their time there appears to be spent arguing with builders and architects and each other, while they figure out how to to renovate the place, but they also do manage to spend a lot of time finding, eating, and thinking about food. One of the gorgeous desserts featured here - thickened yoghurt with sweet stewed grapes - is a speciality of Kythera.

For weeks, I've plagued M&M, as they are known among friends, for recipes for my SA Food Fundis section of this blog, and as they haven't produced the goods, on the grounds that they 'don't really have proper recipes' (and they genuinely don't, preferring to cook from their hearts) I'm giving you what they made me for lunch a Sunday ago. This represents a tiny portion of the wonderful food I've eaten at their home over the years.

Our meal started off with beetroot greens - the top leafy portion of beetroots, with their crimson stalks - simply cooked and dressed with olive oil, vinegar and salt, and a loaf of yeasty home-baked bread. Thin-crusted, crispy pizzas, freckled underneath with the black spots you get only from a proper wood-fired pizza outdoor oven (manned by Michael in his apron) and topped with gorgeous mozzarella, anchovy, tomatoes, herbs, mushrooms and the best salami, came next. Then, when we thought it was all over, two earthenware dishes of youvetsi - a dish consisting of rice-shaped pasta (orzo) combined with the tender rippings of lamb cooked for many hours with tomato, and topped with feta. And then, to crown it all, the yoghurt and stewed grapes.

All this around a wooden table, under a tree, in glowing autumn sunshine, and the scent of lemons drifting from a nearby tree in Michele's organic vegetable patch.

Does food get any better than this?

Want to go for dinner at Chez Auberge de La Mon Repose in Poshville, Sandton, for a Tower of Scottish Salmon with Rooibos Jus and Biltong Spit?

I thought not.

Here are the recipes:



- Stewed Sweet Grapes with Thick Yoghurt and Mascarpone, Kythera-style
- Beetroot Greens with Olive Oil
- Mike's Youvetsi


This post is the second in my series about South African Food Fundis. To see the first post, about Gilly Walters of Wedgewood Nougat, click here. Print Friendly

Crunchy Quinoa Salad with Beetroot and Feta

Anyone remember tabbouleh? This crunchy Lebanese salad, made with bulgur (or cracked wheat) , mint, parsley, tomatoes and spring onions, was a huge hit among health-conscious suburbanites during the eighties, but hardly anyone seems to make it nowadays. I suspect that the reason why it’s fallen out of favour is because it was so rough and filling (and more so when when washed down with few beers) that you ended up spending the entire night craftily flapping the duvet as you deflated in the dark.

I was feeling a bit nostalgic about my mom's tabbouleh, however, so I devised a new version, similar to the original but made with quinoa. This ancient South American staple is becoming increasingly popular among lentil-heads because of its unusually high protein content, its bouquet of healthy amino acids, and its romantic spiritual history*. It’s similar to bulgur, but lighter, fluffier and tastier - and I can assure you it’s lot less aggressive on the farting and bloating front.

What makes this salad so tasty is its abundance of chopped fresh herbs. Leave out the coriander if you must, but the mint and parsley are essential. Ask your local health shop for quinoa, or, if you live in Joeys, get it at Thrupps.

Crunchy Quinoa Salad with Beetroot and Feta

For the salad:
3-4 young beetroot, washed, topped and tailed (if you don't like beetroot, use finely sliced baby red cabbage, or grated radishes)
a lick of olive oil
1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
½ cucumber, finely diced
2 plump, ripe tomatoes, diced
3 spring onions, finely sliced
1 cup (250 ml) finely chopped parsley
¾ cup (190 ml) finely chopped mint
¾ cup (190 ml) finely chopped fresh coriander
salt and milled black pepper
1 handful shelled pumpkin seeds (optional)
2 disks feta cheese, crumbled

For the dressing:
1 cup all-purpose cooking elixir**
Juice of one fat lemon
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Put the the beetroot on a large piece of tin foil, add a dribble of oive oil and a grinding of salt and pepper, and toss well to coat. Wrap into a loose parcel, place in the oven and bake until tender right through. (This can take between an hour and three, depending on the size and age of the beetroot). Remove, allow to cool slightly and slice into slim wedges. Put the dried quinoa into a sieve and rinse well under cold running water. Now put the quinoa, water and salt into a saucepan, set over a high flame and bring to the boil. Cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the quinoa is fluffy and tender. While it’s cooking, combine the cucumber, tomatoes, spring onion and chopped herbs in a salad bowl. Drain the quinoa in a sieve and allow to cool for five minutes. Whisk together the dressing ingredients. Now tip the warm quinoa into the salad bowl, pour over all but 2 tablespoons of the dressing and toss well to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Top with the beetroot slices, crumbled feta and pumpkin seeds. Shake the remaining dressing over the top of the salad so everything looks glossy. Allow to stand for 30 minutes to allow the flavours to develop. Serve at room temperature with hot pita bread.

Serves 6.

** If you haven’t made all-purpose cooking elixir, use the following dressing:

3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1/3 cup good olive oil
1/3 cup sunflower oil (or other flavourless oil)
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tsp Dijon or seed mustard
2 tsp tahina (optional)

* Wikipedia says: 'The Incas, who held the crop to be sacred, referred to quinoa as "chisaya mama" or "mother of all grains", and it was the Inca emperor who would traditionally sow the first seeds of the season using 'golden implements'. During the European conquest of South America quinoa was scorned by the Spanish colonists as "food for Indians", and even actively suppressed, due to its status within indigenous non-Christian ceremonies.' Print Friendly