Feelin' the Beet (Salad)

Of all the single ingredients to dedicate a full blog post to, beets, even as I write this, seems an odd choice.  I'm not completely certain that beets even crack my top 10 favorite foods.  Beets have however recently become a new challenge for me and the primary ingredient in what I think is Lindsay and my most successful dish to date.

Prior to moving to Canada, beets were more of a curiosity to me than an ingredient I gave much thought to.  A local restaurant in my youth made awesome pickled beets (or 'beet pickles' as I've come to know them here) and my dad grew them in our garden one year.  To his credit, he did pull off a pretty good batch of pickled beets with them; we'll defer to my mom on whether or not the resultant product was worth effort in kitchen cleanup. It was only when I moved to Calgary that I began to discover the true potential for this sweet, aromatic, rock hard, shirt (and everything else) staining root vegetable.

Beets grow incredibly well here.  Walking through the summer farmers markets in Calgary, the Hutterite colonies have baskets of beets, red and yellow, large and small.  Ukrainian babas have rolled beet leaves around dough to make beetniks.  And at several of the local restaurants, there are some fantastic variations on the beet salad.  So when we were traveling for our friends' wedding in Chicago, and eating at the Girl and Goat restaurant, as a testament to the familiar flavours of her youth , my fiancée ordered the beet salad.  

I must preface this recollection by stating that, short of the reservation we'd made at Alinea (a meal that did not disappoint in the least), this was the meal we were most looking forward to on this trip.  While the meal itself was not without its successes, the beet salad was a complete disappointment.  It consisted of a few lightly pickled beets, some greens, some toasted squash seeds, and little dressing.  As we'd experienced better from salad bars and quick lunch spots, it is hard to overstate our disappointment with this lackluster effort.  Yet it was this uninspired rendition of a beloved dish that challenged us to seek out, and ultimately to create a better beet salad.

The number of times along this search that my fiancée and I uttered the words, "how was Girl and Goat that bad when this humble lunch spot made it so great?" are nearly impossible to count.  Along this path we discovered a few things.  Goat cheese and beets are a classic paring for a reason. The creamy, savory funk of the goat cheese is a near perfect counter balance to the earthy sweetness of beets.  Also, the concept of "if it grows together, it goes together" was never more evident than in my Mother-in-law-to-be's garden, where dill seemingly grows wild amongst her beet crop.  It provides a nice freshness to a root vegetable and enhances its lighter aromatic qualities.  But the true revolutionary moment was a meal we had at a new local restaurant in Calgary.

In an historic dilapidated hotel building in Calgary's up and coming Inglewood neighborhood, Chef Michael Noble of NOtaBLE fame revitalized the building with The Nash Restaurant and Off Cut Bar.  The menu is entree focused which is not typically my preferred style of dining.  Each dish, with multiple elements and balanced flavors and textures, are planned and executed in a manner that provides similar intrigue to a multi course tasting menu on a single plate.  It's a challenging feat that Chef Noble and his team execute to perfection.  On their appetizer menu, sits a beet salad that is nothing short of inspired.  Complete with beet sorbet, red beets, golden beets, candy cane colored Chioggia beets, and multiple preparations of each, it's a challenging dish to share because there is a new flavor or texture in every bite.  It is from this dish, and the learnings of the aforementioned complimentary ingredients, that Lindsay and I have drawn inspiration to craft our own beet salad preparation.

Our beet salad has four different beet preparations.  We start with cubing red beets and boiling them in a pickling liquid, complete with sugar, salt, citric acid, and pickling spices, until soft.  Half of these beets are reserved with a quarter as much (by volume) of the pickling liquid to make a beet sorbet (thank you Chef Noble for this fantastic idea).  The other half of these beets become a core component of the salad, the flavor and texture of which are reminiscent of the beet pickles of Lindsay and my respective childhood's (did I mention that her mother makes a beet pickle that rivals my hometown restaurant?).  

For the beet sorbet, we puree the reserved beets and liquid and strain it to make it smooth before running it through our ice cream machine.  The goal of our beet sorbet is to pull it more savory and acidic than sweet.  The other beet components of the dish have enough natural sweetness to provide that element of balance.  The beet sorbet, once added to the final salad, is one of two sauce/dressing components, the cool tartness of which balances the rich creaminess of the goat cheese crema. 

This is one of only 2 elements of the dish that does not actually contain beets.  We combine approximately equal parts heavy cream and goat chevre to a smooth consistency.  We add salt, pepper, a tablespoon or so of dill oil, and chopped fresh dill to this cream mixture.  (As you’ll notice, each element of the dish is seasoned to a point of balance and could stand on its own with flavors.) The dill and goat cheese are the pairing elements that go so nicely with our beet components. 

Next, we roast quartered golden and red beets.  Prior to roasting, we toss the quartered beets (separated by color) in camelina oil (a local product with a peppery quality - olive oil is a fine substitute), fresh dill, salt and pepper.  We wrap them in foil and bake at 375 until soft (approximately 45 minutes).  Once cooled, we slice them about a 1/8 inch think and plate.  This preparation is the most earthy and savory preparation.

Our final beet preparation is the quick pickle.  On a mandolin, we slice red beets in rounds nearly paper thin.  We rest them in a brine of white vinegar, pickling spice, salt, sugar, fresh dill, and red onion for about a half hour.  This provides a bright, sharp flavor (we pull this brine very acidic with the white vinegar - Lindsay might argue a bit too acidic in my latest attempt) and a crisp textural element to the salad.  

Finally, we assemble all of the components as pictured, topping with toasted walnuts (or pine nuts depending on your preference).  Presentation is one of the fun elements of this and we've done it several ways.  Our favourite is on the long plates pictured, the purchase of which has been disputed as an unnecessary extravagance.  The alternate position here being, it looks really cool.  

There are several things we love about how this dish comes together.  The sorbet and crema complement each other with different textures, temperatures, and flavour elements and act as a dressing for this salad.  The roasted beets and hot pickled beets provide the soft textured elements of the dish and balance with the crunchier quick pickled beets and toasted nuts.  There are creamy, sweet, sour, herbal, nutty, and earthy flavor elements to this dish and they combine differently depending on which elements you put on the fork together.  It's intended to be playful and allow the person enjoying it to write their own path as they eat it. This is not a dish that is a quick 30 minute meal, but it presents well and tastes fantastic.  It is a beet salad as beet salad is intended, displaying beets in ways that might not be unfamiliar and a bit surprising (beet sorbet) but still strikes a chord of nostalgia with the familiar pickled beet/beet pickle flavours we grew up with.  And that for us is the fun of it, and the point of pride we take in having created it.