Monday 2 August 2010

Beetroot salad dressing

I've been meaning to post this up for ages, as it's my current favourite salad dressing. But I couldn't remember where I'd found it. It was getting pressing as it's coming into beetroot season now (er, I think, at least ours are being harvested).

When I like a recipe that I see in a magazine, I tear it out and put it in a Muji folder that has clear sleeves, so you end up making your own recipe book. It works really well: you can change the order round, very easily get rid of recipes you don't end up using much, and the plastic sleeve that encases every page keeps them clean of cooking splashes.

Here is the one of the pages from one of my many recipe books using torn out magazines put into Muji PP folders. It just so happens it's a pic of some chocolate cheesecake ice cream cookies..also I know that when I post this on Facebook this is the picture that will come up, and I bet more people will read it thinking it's about biscuits/chocolate rather than vegetables.

Here's the same book closed, not easy to take a pic of as not the most photogenic article, but bloody useful.






If I really like a recipe and use it lots, I write it out in my Travelling Cookbook, which is so named as we take it with us when we go away and is a large Moleskine book, much used, much loved and I like that it's all handwritten (I have romantic ideas that my daughters will one day inherit this book and say things like "look, that's Mamma's famous chocolate mousse recipe"). This is what I'd done with the beetroot dressing recipe, which is why I had no idea whose it was. I have about 10 of those Muji folders, each housing 60 sleeves, ergo 120 recipes, so I kept meaning to go through and find the original.

You get the point.

Finally, as is the way of these things, I found it whilst looking for something else. It was by Yotam Ottolenghi, who is fantastic. He gives it as part of a bigger recipe involving gorgonzola, radiccio and toasted almonds, but you can put this dressing on almost any type of salad. Drizzle it on (use one of those squeezy bottles chef use if you have one) as if you actually toss the salad in it, whilst it will still taste delicious, it really won't look so hot.

This dressing makes a fair amount - I'd say enough for six very greedy people, it keeps for a day or two but not much longer so make less if there are less of you.

One small beetroot, cooked (I buy mine precooked, otherwise roast it til soft)
20g honey
15g Dijon mustard
1 garlic clove (I tend to leave this out)
25ml cider vinegar
salt and pepper
120ml extra virgin olive oil

Yotam (cos we're on first name terms, I wish), suggests you blend everything together (I use a mini blender, the one that attachs to my Braun Multistick thing, really useful piece of equipment) and then add half the oil, mix up and then other half. I have to say I just bung it all in and it's fine.

8 comments:

Mrs Dee said...

Ooh thank you! I'm growing beetroot, so this is very handy. My beetroot will be a bit late this year. I had to sow the bloody things three times as the seedlings kept getting eaten by sparrows!! (I eventually built a "cage" around the seedlings to protect them. Hah! Take that, birds!)

Annalisa Barbieri said...

We are on a beetroot bender in this house Lisa. Now if only we could work out how to make cocktails out of it..

Mrs Dee said...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/beetrootmargarita_86771

Hoooo yeah!

Annalisa Barbieri said...

*Like*

laputain said...

this is bizarre. a colleague recommended a YO 'beetroot salad' to me a while back and I looked and looked but could not find and cursed my weak google-fu. I wonder if this was what she was talking about? Yay for blogging friends (Lisa) blogging links to their (blogging) friends and reading backwards in time and finding cool shit. woot.

Annalisa Barbieri said...

Yo as in Yo Sushi? That probably had beetroot in it, in it, rather than liquidised and poured on top!?

Yay for Lisa anyway!

Jules said...

AL, you are a star. I am in cooking job in Oz and needed a nice recipe for BR dressing. I looked up some others and they woz rubbish. Yours looked fab from the first onset. thankyoooo!! jules xxx
Am making a pan fried Halloumi and mixed bean salad to try and spice up the life of quite traditional diners in an old fashioned (but lovely) cafe. bring it on! will keep you posted as to how it went down. mwah.

Annalisa Barbieri said...

Am so pleased you found it useful Jules. Keep me posted. And let's all thank Ottolenghi, whose excellent recipe this is..