A Tasty Week

Behold, Beta vulgaris, better known as the mighty beet! Beets are another one of those tasty things that I’ve enjoyed a thousand ways dining out, but haven’t ventured to try cooking them at home.

According to Wikipedia, beets are old. Way old. Second millennium BC old. And it can also be used to make wine (sounds like a bad idea to me). They’re also rich in vitamins and nutrients. And delicious. What’s not to love?

Some tips on beets from The Worldwide Gourmet:

Buying
Avoid buying beets with slightly wrinkled skin, a sign that they are starting to dry out.

Smaller roots are more tender - avoid any larger than about 2 1/2” in diameter as they may have tough, woody cores.

Storing
Beets will keep for a long time in a cold room or refrigerator once the leaves have been cut off at the collar level.

Of course, like usual, I didn’t actually read any of these tips before we ventured to the farmer’s market, but still did pretty well, though I think a couple of our beets were larger than 2 1/2″. I also completely spaced out and forgot to take the “before” photo of the beets.

The inspiration of this dish comes from JCT Kitchen, an excellent restaurant in Atlanta. They offer a Roasted Beet and Avocado Salad, with Thomasville Goat Cheese and Pistachios. I couldn’t remember all the components from the salad, but I was going to wing it: oven roasted beets, avocado, small dice of onion, goat cheese, tossed in a white whine vinaigrette.

I started off by heating the oven to 400 degrees F, giving the beets a gentle wash (I had heard if you scrub too hard, the skin comes off, and I’d be peeling them later), wrapping in tin foil, and baking for 60 minutes:

They looked fairly unchanged after removing them from the oven:

I let them rest on the counter for a bit, until they were cool enough to handle, then I sliced off the top and bottom, and peeled the rest, yielding naked roasted beets:

I began to dice the first of the three, when I realized I had way more beet than I was going to need. By a factor of three. Two of them were spared (for the time being), and tossed in a ZipLoc in the fridge. The unlucky beet found itself diced, tossed in a mixing bowl, and put in the freezer to chill (with the salad plates):

The remaining mise en place for the salad:

I chopped half a medium-large onion into a small dice (already done in the photo above, obviously), pulsed about a quarter to a third of a cup of shelled pistachios in the food processor, and cubed one (didn’t need both) avocado (and I did that last, so it could be quickly tossed with the dressing before it would brown).

I also whipped up a quick and simple vinaigrette, with olive oil, white wine vinegar, a pinch of kosher salt, and a pinch of espelette pepper. I combined and gently tossed the ingredients together in the mixing bowl the beets were chilling in:

and served onto chilled plates, forming into a cylinder using some baking rings:

How was it? It was delicious, that’s how it was! We both cleaned our plates.

Pretty simple, and pretty quick (other than beet-baking time, which could be done in advance), but had a great combination of flavors and textures. What would I have changed? I think there was probably too much goat cheese (it melted down a bit when being tossed, and made it look a little sloppy), and I think it could benefit from a bit more acid (probably more of, or a more pronounced vinegar in the dressing), but we both scarfed it down.

Next up? Brussels Sprouts!

Resources: beets from Dupont Circle Freshfarm Market; avocado, onion, goat cheese, pistachios, salt, olive oil and vinegar from Whole Foods; espelette pepper from Amazon.com

Wine: Santa Isabel Malbec, Argentina

beet, salad, vegetarian

With part one of the parsnip adventure not turning out exactly as I’d hoped, I was a bit apprehensive about starting part two, the parsnip purée. I based my attempt on this adaptation of Julia Child’s recipe. My dish was a pan seared Hake (a white fish similar to Cod) served over a parsnip purée, with a spicy red seaweed salad (which I bought).

I started with the two left-over parsnips from part one, one large, one medium:

I chopped them into uniform-sized pieces (not worrying about making them too pretty, since they’d be puréed anyhow), placed them into a medium-sized saucepan and added water until they were just covered (though I discovered they started to float, so basically added water until they started floating). I also gave a couple generous pinches of kosher salt for seasoning:

I brought the pan to a boil, lowered to a simmer over medium-high heat, and cooked for about 20 to 25 minutes, until the parsnips were tender, and about 2/3 of the water had evaporated.

Once they were done cooking, I removed the pan from the heat, and carefully poured the whole mix into a food processor, and pulsed it (scraping down the sides as needed) until it reached the consistency I was looking for: a paste that still had some texture.

I spatulated (is that a verb?) the purée back into the sauce pan, and added about a tablespoon and a half of butter:

I continued to cook this over a medium-low (eventually turning it down to the lowest heat) until the butter was incorporated, seasoned to taste with more salt, then covered it while I prepared the rest of the dish (about 20 minutes).

The final product, plated:

How did it turn out? I think it was pretty delicious. There was the rich underlying sweetness of the parsnips, mixed with a savoriness from the salt, and the butter added just the right amount of creaminess. Brandon preferred the roasted parsnips, saying the purée was a little odd since it had the consistency of mashed potatoes, yet was a bit sweet.

Next up: beets!

Ingredients: parsnips (Dupont Circle Freshfarm Market), Lescure Burre des Charentes butter (BlackSalt), kosher salt (Whole Foods)
Wine: had a cocktail instead!

parsnip, puree, side dish, vegetarian

I’m kicking off A Tasty Week with something I’ve enjoyed in restaurants, but have never tried preparing myself: the parsnip.

Pastinaca sativa, the root vegetable known more commonly as the parsnip, is a relative of the carrot. Interestingly, despite its paler complexion, it’s richer in vitamins and minerals than the carrot, especially with potassium.

The Worldwide Gourmet offers tips on choosing and storing parsnips:

Buying tips
Choose small to moderate parsnips, well-formed, smooth, firm and free from serious blemishes or decay. 
Best buy: The first frost of the year converts the parsnip’s starch to sugar and gives it a pleasantly sweet flavor.

Avoid Parsnips with large, coarse roots which will have woody, fibrous, pithy centers.
Avoid also badly wilted and flabby roots which will be tough when cooked.

Storing
Parsnips have nearly the same storage requirements as topped carrots. They can be stored in the crisper of the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks. 
As they age, parsnips dry out and soften.

Well, on the bright side, we’ve definitely had some frost already, however I wish I had known the “choose small to moderate parsnips,” the ones I picked up are ginormous. I’m going to mitigate that by removing the centers, which from my reading are supposed to be woody and gross in the center. The more you know, right?

I’m going to be trying the two preparations I’ve had the most: roasted parsnips, and a parsnip purée. The tastiest roasted parsnips I’ve had were at Tom Colicchio’s Craft in Atlanta, they had a nice crisp to the outside, and were well-seasoned. I had striped bass atop a parsnip purée at CitiZen here in DC, which is what I’m going to model my puree attempt after.

On a tangent, I’ve got a couple challenges facing me on this project: I’m in somewhat of limbo relocating from Atlanta to Washington, DC, and I’ve only brought “necessities” with me due to space constraints — everything else is in storage until I am in permanent accommodations here. Including my “big camera,” and my full set of cookbooks. For almost anything, I can turn to my trusty Culinary Institute of America textbook (if you don’t have a copy, it really is a great “how to cook just about anything” reference), but instead, I’ll be depending somewhat on the web. Life’s an adventure, right?

Back to the food.

So today’s attempt will be roasted parsnips, served along side walnut and gorgonzola ravioli atop wilted arugula, drizzled with sage brown butter.

I based my attempt somewhat on this recipe, though I simplified it a bit, as I’d like the taste of the parsnips to shine through. The mise en place is pretty simple for this dish: parsnips, olive oil, and salt. I started by chopping the parsnips to be of a fairly uniform size so they’d cook evenly, and removing much of the center core of the larger parsnip (I used two of my parsnips for this dish, and reserved the other two for part 2). I tossed them in a mixing bowl with a tablespoon of olive oil, and a couple large pinches of kosher salt:

After giving them a good toss, I spread them out on a foil-lined baking pan (part of my moving drama is that my baking sheets won’t fit in my comical mini-oven in the apartment, so I’m having to use my countertop oven):

I put them into the oven, preheated to 425, and after about 25 minutes or so, they were already starting to brown, which was much quicker than I expected. I don’t have much faith in the temperature control of that little oven, so the temperature is often a bit of a mystery. The strange part is despite some of them starting to brown, I wasn’t getting the crispy outside I expected. I tried giving them a quick blast on convection at a higher temperature to see if I could coax the texture I was looking for out of them, without much success.

The final product (served as an accompaniment to gorgonzola and walnut ravioli in a sage brown butter sauce, over wilted arugula):

While not having the texture I was hoping for, the flavor was GREAT. A wonderful combination of savory and sweet, without being overpowering in either regard. This is definitely a preparation I will attempt again, hopefully getting it as I intended.

Next up: parsnip purée

Ingredients: parsnips (Dupont Circle Freshfarm Market), olive oil and kosher salt (Whole Foods)
Wine: Martin Códax Albariño, Rías Baixas, Spain

parsnip, roasting, side dish, vegetarian

Welcome to A Tasty Week, the chronicles of my goal of cooking with at least one new ingredient every week.

I came up with this idea this morning wandering through the Dupont Circle farmer’s market on a Sunday morning, looking at all the interesting and locally-produced goods, wondering “what could I do with that?” or more often “how would I even begin to prepare that?”

I think this will be an exciting way for me to explore fresh and interesting ingredients, and I hope you’ll enjoy the journey. This endeavor also gets some inspiration from my friend Carol’s blog, Alinea at Home (the follow-on of The French Laundry at Home), where she takes on cooking some really exciting stuff from some really challenging cookbooks.

Coming up this week: parsnips!
Other purchases from the farmer’s market: arugula, gorgonzola and walnut ravioli

welcome