A cook’s year BEETROOT
This colourful root is one of the finest turn-of-the-season vegetables. Over the page, Gill Meller gives beetroot a last hit of summertime smoke and flame with his knockout, coal-cooked recipe
Beetroot is one of my favourite vegetables of all time. This colourful root is available all year because it keeps well, but I find long-stored beetroot can be a little disappointing. It can take ages to cook, then still be frustratingly hard and difficult to peel. Not so with tender, late-summer beetroot – and if you can find them locally grown, still with their green leafy tops in place, you’re on to an absolute winner. You can cook the leaves like a kind of chard.
Beetroot is a versatile vegetable. I’ve often thought it deserves its own cookbook, extolling its virtues in all its guises: raw, roasted, pickled, fermented, dried, fried, boiled and barbecued.