Beetroot Salad With 20-minutes Sweet Pickled Onions

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Here is a beetroot salad with an interesting blend of unexpected flavours - sweet, salty, savoury and sharp.

The salty savouriness comes from the creamy blue cheese and then there is extra virgin olive oil. The sweetness and sharpness is from the onions that were pickled in sugar and vinegar. The sharp and salty capers and pickled onions provides little bites of crunch to the salad. 

Those who like beetroots would like this salad. Those who do not appreciate the earthy flavour of beetroots would find this salad rather palatable as the other flavours - sweet, salty, sharp - helps tone down the 'earthiness' of beetroot. 

This salad goes best with fresh crusty bread, such as a baguette, so that you can sponge up all the flavours off your plate.

There is no salad dressing to prepare. Drizzle the plated salad with the sweet pickled juices, extra virgin olive oil and grate a generous amount of lemon zest over the plate. It becomes even simpler to make if you can buy ready cooked beetroots.

This is my favourite way to eat beetroot.

ROASTED BEETROOT SALAD WITH 20-MINUTE SWEET PICKLED ONIONS

Prep:	15 minutes
Cook:	~1 hour to roast beetroot or buy ready roasted
Inactive:	20 minutes
Level:	Easy
Serves:	2
Oven Temperature:	400 F (200C) if roasting beetroot
Can recipe be doubled?	Yes
Make ahead?	Up to 2 days

Just the ingredients 20-minute sweet pickled onions 1/2 cup (50g) onions, thinly sliced 1 Tablespoon lemon/lime juice 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt Salad ingredients 1 whole beetroot OR buy ready roasted 1 teaspoon capers 2 Tablespoons (less/more) of any kind of blue cheese 1 to 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil  1 Tablespoon lemon juice  1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon black pepper Zest of 1 lemon/lime

Ingredients

20-minute pickled onions

1/2 cup (50g) onions, thinly sliced

1 Tablespoon lemon/lime juice

1 and 1/2 Tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Salad ingredients

1 whole beetroot OR buy ready roasted
1 teaspoon capers

2 Tablespoons (less/more) of any kind of blue cheese

1 to 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 

1 Tablespoon lemon juice 

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Zest of 1 lemon/lime

Method

Roast the beetroot

Heat up the oven to 400F (200C) oven rack adjusted to middle position. Wrap the beetroot in aluminium foil. It should look like a UFO.  Hot air circulates within the package and helps speed up cooking. That is what I am told anyway.

Bake in heated oven for 1 hour. Beetroot is cooked when you can easily insert a skewer through it. 

Unwrap and when it is cool enough to handle, peel off the skin which can be pretty fun. Slice the beetroot as thinly as you can manage. Cover and set aside until ready to use. I keep the sliced beetroot in the refrigerator as I like them cold.

Assembling the salad

Arrange the sliced beetroot on a large flat serving plate. Distribute the capers, little bites of blue cheese and drained pickled onions over them.

Drizzle the extra virgin olive and lemon juice. Sprinkle pepper and salt.

Finally grate lemon zest directly over the salad.

Serve with chunks of bread.

Tips

If you like beetroot, it makes sense to roast more than one beetroot in the oven. I often roast at least 3 individually aluminium foiled wrapped beetroot at a time.

This is what I do with them:

• Roast Beef With Beetroot Tea Sandwiches

My ideal roast beef tea sandwich. Beefy tasting,
 tender and moist.

There is a thin slice of beetroot within each sandwich. I roast my own beef and they are meltingly tender with an enticing round pink centre.

• Beetroot soup

If you have a blender, this is about the easiest soup you can make as you literally zap all the ingredients in a blender. I add capers in it for an unexpected tangy zing! I will be posting this recipe shortly. It is rather different from the usual beetroot soups.

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