This recipe goes to show that beetroot are a great crop for your Kitchen Garden, as you can eat the leaves as well as the roots. Cooking beetroot in the oven makes it easy to remove the skins, and the rich purple roots and bright green leaves just looks so inviting. You can take this recipe in two directions – either serve warm as a side dish dressed with sour cream, or allow to cool and mix with orange segments, walnuts, fetta and a vinaigrette dressing. Actually I will put that together as a new recipe for you – it is brilliant!
Gotta fess up…my first draft called this recipe Roots & Shoots…but it ended up sounded like a dangerous bloke rather than a delicious side dish.
Ingredients
6 Beetroot with tops on (Freshly yanked from your garden)
1 splash Olive Oil
3 heaped tablespoons Sour Cream (For serving)
Directions
Step 1
Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees centigrade.
Twist to remove stems from the beetroots, place a selection of the smaller leaves in a glass of water to keep fresh
Step 2
Scrub the dirt off the beetroot, leaving the skins on. Trim the roots and stems just to tidy them up without slicing into the beetroot.
Step 3
Place is a small baking dish, coat with olive oil. Cover the dish with aluminium foil.
Step 4
Place in pre-heated oven for 1 hour. Give them a shake halfway through to make sure they are coated with oil.
Step 5
After one hour, test with a skewer to see if they are tender. If ready remove from the oven and set them aside to cool down slowly.
Once cool enough to handle, just rub/strip off the skins and discard.
Cut each beetroot into wedges and arrange onto your serving dish.
Step 6
Rinse the leaves and remove the lower two thirds of each stem. Place in a frying pan with a few drops of oil, and heat for just 30 to 60 seconds. Once they are bright green but not completely collapsed, remove from the heat.
Place on top of the roots, then add nice dollops of sour cream to serve.