Beetroot Salad
Simple, delicious, healthy and even pretty; what more could you want?. The perfect salad for times when you want to get ahead because it will wait happily in your fridge. The hint of orange in the yoghurt dressing compliments the beetroot perfectly.
Ingredients
1 bunch raw beetroot, about 500g, 5 large beets
1 tbsp. olive oil
4 tbsps. thick Greek yoghurt, full fat
grated zest of 1 large orange
Oven 180c
Method
Wash the beetroot and to prevent it from bleeding, cut the leaves off leaving about 4cms of stalk still attached, also do not remove the long thin root, just loosely wrap the whole lot in foil and bake in the oven at 180c for about 1 hour; timing depends a bit on the size of the beets.
Insert a sharp knife straight through the foil; when it glides in and out easily, the beetroot is done. Allow it to cool down in the foil
When the beetroot is cool enough to handle, rub the skin off with your fingers. They will of course become stained pink, but it washes off easily provided you do it fairly quickly.
Set aside the smallest of the beets and cut the others into thick chunks, toss them in the olive oil, season with salt and pepper and return them uncovered to the oven to roast for 30 minutes or so.
Meanwhile, roughly chop the reserved beetroot, stir in the yoghurt and whizz with a hand held stick blender or food procesor until it becomes a velvety smooth, gloriously purple puree.
Grate in the zest of orange and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Remove the roasted beetroot from the oven, transfer it to a large bowl and allow it to cool
Stir the beetroot and yoghurt puree into the roasted beets, coating them thoroughly.
Serve sprinkled with chopped walnuts, chopped pistachios or toasted pumpkin and sesame seeds.
Helpful Hints
After coating the beetroot thoroughly with the purple yoghurt puree you could fold through some plain unadorned yoghurt to create a pretty rippled effect.
