Beets

[aftermidnight]

Jeannine, my grandmother was from Melton Mowbray and she made the most amazing pork pie, she also made head cheese and jellied tongue, those two I didn't care for but the M.M. pork pie was something else, a slice of that with some hot mustard, yum, I did eat tripe when I was young but somewhere down the road I went off it, possible after going in the kitchen when it was cooking LOL.
Although back in the 40's my grandfather owned one of the larger grocery/dry goods store in town, they had a large garden and they grew most of what they ate. They had peach, apricot, apple, cherry and plum trees, one was a damson (the best plum jam ever). They grew raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, red and black currants and they also had a walnut tree, gran made her own pickled walnuts. They kept chickens as well, all this was on a double city sized lot.
For Christmas there always was her famous plum pudding with brandy sauce, gran was a teetotaler, but when it came to her plum pudding and mince meat , well that was a different matter LOL.

Back on subject, beets, love them and have just planted a row of Detroit Dark Red, haven't grown them in years, why I don't know as beets are another favorite vegetable of ours. Years ago I had trouble growing beets until I had our soil analyzed, lack of potash was the problem, once that was rectified no more problems.

Annette

[ChristinaJo]

Thanks for the recipes! I will grow them again and try making them this way. If I still don't like them, I've got friends that I can give them to.

[Worth1]

Back some time ago in this fabulous thread about beets pickling them was brought up.
I have a few comments about this.
When you are making your liquid to put in the beets there is only one thing that is important and that is the acidity.
I will get to that later.
If you dont like the taste of this liquid you will not like the taste of the beet or pickle.
If it is too sour then feel free to put in more sugar to make it the way you want It this will not hurt anything if it is too sweet go the other way and add less,
This and the spices are your choice they are not set in stone.
In other words get the acidity right and tinker with the spices till you like them.

Let the spices sit in the hot water for a while and taste you can over power with some real fast like cloves.

My favorite way is to use pickling spices and cinnamon sticks.

Worth

[Jeannine Anne]

I did say you could taste it after the vinegar was made and adjust to suit, There is more than enough acidity in my recipe for safe preservation, I am very picky about that, and if she tries them again she can always try Harvard Beets which are quite sweet and not much spice,,and if all that fails I have a lovely recipe fro Beet Relish too.

XX Jeannine

[fonseca]

I grow Bull's Blood beets just for the greens, which are great as baby lettuce and a nice purple color. I have very poor germination with this variety despite soaking, and the seedlings always seem weak, but once they get established they take off.

I've tried to like beets, but there's something about the gelatinous texture that will make me gag. I roast them in the oven, and then grate like cheese over a salad. Grated strips eliminate that texture. Add some feta and balsamic vinegar!

Originally Posted by clkeiper

Arugala... ugh! I just can't stand it.

I probably eat a pound of arugula a week in the summer! Which variety have you tried, wild rocket? There are quite a few cultivated and wild varieties, the latter can be bitter. My favorite is olive-leaf sylvetta, which grows into a perennial woody shrub, the leaves are lemony and peppery, and make a better pesto than basil. I overwinter my plants and let them go to seed in the spring, as the (yellow unlike regular arugula) flowers are also tasty in salads.

[Tracydr]

I love baby beets,love the greens. I found it took awhile to acquire the taste for both me and my husband.
Really enjoy little beets boiled on salads.

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by Jeannine Anne

I can my chutney finish it off in a water bath which is perfectly safe as the acid balance is fine and it keeps for years. I am by the way VERY particular about canning, in fact I get myself into trouble all the time telling folks they are out of date and taking chanced LOL

Anyway here it is.



NANA FAIRFIELD'S GREEN TOMATO CHUTNEY

You will need, apples, green tomatoes ,onions, sultanas or raisins, sugar, vinegar,
salt ,nutmeg ,curry powder,(an over the counter one will do if you don't make your own)

You will also need vinegar I use malt if I can and pickling spices. Or you an use the already made perfumed vinegar if you have it.

Chop, everything, don't grind it,but crush the garlic.

Then to every 3 cups of chopped tomatoes add...
3 cups chopped apples
3 cups copped onions
1 cup sultanas or raisins
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 tablespoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 1/2 cups malt vinegar
1/4 cup of pickling spices tied in a muslin square
if you have the already made vinegar use 1 1'/2 cups of that and leave out the spices

Put as many batches as you have measured for in a large pan except for the apples and raisins, pop them in a bit later when the onions are stating to soften so they don't break down .

Simmer gently till everything is soft and there is less liquid

You want to be able to recognize what is in it so don't overcook it the liquid will be mostly absorbed and what is there will be syrupy .Place in sterilized proper canning jars and water bath for 15 minutes.


Then to make the best UK PUB GRUB sandwich called a Ploughmans

No butter on the bread but mayo both sides, then chutney boht sides ,fill with chopped crisp lettuce, thin sliced cucumber, thin sliced tomato, very thin sliced red onion and grated very sharp cheddar cheese. I have yet to find a Canadian or US cheese to match the UK strong cheddar, here can get imported ones. I find the others use a flavoring to "improve" the age of cheese, which isn't used in the UK.. but I think it just may be whatever you are used to


Great sandwich, oh and it goes great with cold cuts, any cheese plate and especially with curries

XX Jeannine

Sounds delicious!that brine would work well with watermelon rinds I think,too.

[Nematode]

Originally Posted by ChristinaJo

Thanks for the recipes! I will grow them again and try making them this way. If I still don't like them, I've got friends that I can give them to.

Dont give up on beets, I am with you on the dirt flavor, cant stand it, but they are beautiful and delicious.
Boil them slip the skins and dice them.
Mix the cubed beets with a pinch of sugar, pinch salt, and a splash of vinegar and leave them in the fridge for half an hour or more.
This partially pickled is my favorite. Eat them as is or use on fresh greens with goat cheese.

Dirt flavor is gone 100%

[Tracydr]

Fonseca- is your arugula outside during summer? I had no idea it would grow here in the summer and never heard of an arugula perennial ! Now I'm excited!

[oakley]

Love all beets, beet greens, beet juice, beet pickles, grated beet in my slaw and sauerkraut.
the yellow and white are much more mild. Love all the arugula varieties and radishes. I pickled the black radishes last fall and someone at work wanted to try them. When i presented on a small plate everyone else in the room thought a bag of rotting garbage had been opened somewhere. haha.
Very earthy.

Don't care much for okra unless pickled. And i grew rat-tail radish last year and tasted bland and stringy tough...but might have been my climate. Pickling did not help. A shame...huge plants.

I'm always picking up the odd this and that when i'm in ChinaTown and do a google search when i get home...fresh turmeric is strange. Some of the greens are very bitter.

[Rosedude]

Very interesting thread. Cylindra beets grow well for me but they are longer than wide and my wife, who makes a lot of borshch says they are not the right shape for borshch. I know there are as many borshch recipes as there are cooks, many with diced or sliced beets where you couldn't tell the original shape, so I let this go by.

Anyway, one day my DW was making some of her delicious borshch and I was making fruit popsicles and she asked me if there were any recipes for beet popsicles because she loved beets very much. I Googled it and sure enough there was. The recipe called for water reserved from boiling beets. My DW read the popsicle recipe and said was just about to boil some beets for her borshch and she gave me a few cups for the popsicles. When she tasted a finished popsicle she couldn't finish it and handed it to me. She had salted the water with the beets and the popsicles tasted salty. I ended up eating all the salty beet popsicles, which tasted bad, but my mother taught me not to waste food. Chef's learn by eating their mistakes.

So back to beets and acidity. Good borshch is sour and beets are naturally sweet. Newer borshch recipes often call for added vinegar or even lemons, which were not available to peasant cooks in Eastern Europe. Real old school borshch was made sour by letting it ferment for a day or so. This is the way my mother made it and it tastes a lot better than the vinegary kind.

Even better is borshch made with sorrel (zeleniy borshch). Skip the beets. Fill the pot with chopped sorrel, maybe a little spinach. (It boils down.) Some people like to add potato for a little body. I just throw a chunk of brindza in the bowl and revel in the goodness. Just writing this makes me want some.

[Jeannine Anne]

That is interesting because when I boil beets it is one of the only two veggies I don't add salt to so maybe if there was no salt they would have been different. When I make Borscht and want to add a bit of a tang to it, I use the flavored vinegar from my pickles are sitting in, and it a lovely color, in fact I finely chop a small amount of the pickled beet too, it breaks down when cooking so you don't see the bits of pickled beets among the rest but it gives a nice flavor if you don't add too much

Have you even made a sweet pie with beets, cinnamon sugar etc, it is very good. You can mix the beets with berries too, great with a dollop of whipped cream on top or more traditional to serve custard

[Jeannine Anne]

Aftermidnight, today in the mail I received an old book on British Charcuterie, there was lot of info about pork pies and how the Melton Mowbrays are different to the Yorkshire ones, lots of sausage recipes from all regions in the UK, along with all kinds of other things made from pig meat and it's bits. Great book. I guess I will be playing a lot in the kitchen this next week or two.

[Tracydr]

I've never had borscht. Mind sharing your fermented borscht recipe?

[Rosedude]

Tracydr I've never had borscht. Mind sharing your fermented borscht recipe?

I make borshch but I don't use a recipe. I also don't make it the old way because you need to have pre-fermented beets already made, or wait a day or more for them to ferment, however I'll tell you how it's done.

In my house, if I make borshch I would be competing with my wife, who has a different cooking style, and this would end badly. My wife doesn't use vinegar in her borshch. She adds lemon or tomatoes or both. My previous wife used sauerkraut to add acidity. I never learned my mother's exact recipe but I watched her put partially cooked pots of borshch in a corner of the kitchen to ferment overnight or longer. Many people who make borshch say it tastes better if you let it stand in the refrigerator overnight, so it probably ferments a little while standing.

Borshch is a lot like Nail Soup, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. YMMV

Now that I got the excuses out of the way here's my formula:

Rosedude's Borshch (fermented or not)

2 good sized dark red beets (or 3-4 smaller ones, or one giant beet) peeled and sliced, diced, or julienned. If you are going to ferment the beets first you are going to put the beets in water with a pinch of salt, bring them to a boil for 20-30 minutes until the beets soften a little and set the mash aside for a day or so to ferment. You'll know its fermenting from the little bubbles that form. The process is similar to making pickled cucumbers or sauerkraut. If you don't want to wait a day there are other optional ways to make the borshch sour faster.

oil (about 1 table spoon) for sauteeing the onions and browning the stew meat.
onion, chopped (about 1 cup or one onion)

6 cups beef, chicken, vegetable stock, or water. Some people don't put meat in their borshch but I always do. You can use stew meat, beef bones, ribs, even pork or chicken to make the stock. I leave the meat in the borchsh but some people don't. My wife uses boulion cubes if she is in a hurry. If you are using tough meat or thick bones you will want to boil these separately for a longer period until the meat it tender before adding to the final preparation. Skim off the fat from the meat before adding to the borshch.
Pinch of salt and pepper to taste

Optional additional ingredients: (add some or all, depending on what you have)
celery, chopped (my wife's way) or whole (my mother's way) or cut into 2 inch pieces (my way)
1 cup diced carrots (I slice them into disks)
1 medium potato diced (small cubes cook faster) (I always add this, but some people think it makes the red beet juice cloudy)
dill, fresh chopped (about 1/4 cup) (My first wife liked this. I add it if I have it.)
Beans (lima, kidney or other large cooking bean from a can or precooked) (my father likes beans but I don't) Beans make a heartier borshch, expecially if you don't have chunks of meat.

Ingredients for souring the borshch: (to taste)
tomatoes, (any kind: whole, canned, chopped, etc...ever about 1 cup) (I usually add this.)
Lemon Juice (I often add this)
vinegar, 1 or 2 Tablespoons (apple cider vinegar is good but any kind works.) I sometimes add this, but I use it sparingly as a final tuneup to the flavor.
2 cups sauerkraut or cabbage (I don't like cabbage in my borshch but many people do.

Preparation

Combine all of the ingredients in the large pot and simmer for about 25 minutes. If you want a stout borshch, thick enough for spoons to stand in, be sure to add plenty of potatoes, beans and meat. If you want a thinner soup cut back on some ingredients. If it has beets, its borshch. I make the final taste adjustments at this time. I like it with a savory, slightly sour taste. If you add too much vinegar it tastes acidy. You can also ferment it after making it by letting it stand in a corner of your kitchen or in your refrigerator over night.

People usually serve it with a spoonful of sour cream in the middle of the bowl, which is delicious, but I'm lactose intolerant so I leave it out.