Beetroot goes with ...

"The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies." Tom Robbins

Yes I know that's all a bit over the top but then the beetroot is a vegetable that is a bit over the top - everyone quotes Jane Grigson who said that it was a 'bossy vegetable'. But really that's only because it's colour bleeds into everything it touches. And somehow that quote described the nature of beetroot really well.

I'm talking about beetroot because I had some leftover beetroot and smoked ocean trout quiche for my lunch. I am very proud of this particular quiche - no doubt if I search I will find that somebody has made it before, but I like to think of it as a Rosemary original. It was originally made with smoked trout and beetroot - because this is what I had in my fridge on the day I decided to make quiche. I tarted it up with horseradish and sprinkled some cheese on top and when it came out of the oven I sprinkled it with lemon juice. It was absolutely delicious and now I make it from time to time, sometimes with different smoked fish and I have also added mustard, leeks, chives - just varied it a bit. I think the smoked trout (or mackerel) is best though. The beetroot by the way is peeled, grated, cooked in the microwave with a little butter, before adding to the quiche mixture. It has become David's favourite quiche I think.

And I called today's effort, Beetroot goes with ... because my quiche recipe came as a result of knowing that beetroot went with smoked fish and cream. How have I learnt this? Well mostly through years of reading cookery books - but I also have a couple of books - Stephanie Alexander's major tome, The Cook's Companion and also Beverley Sutherland Smith's The Seasonal Kitchen, which arrange their books by ingredients and have a list of other ingredients in each section that go with the ingredient at hand. It's a quick way of checking up on such things. If you know what goes with something, then you can invent things. Of course the genius cooks find new and unexpected things to go with things - see my previous article on pairing - and I certainly don't think of myself as a genius but I confess to being pleased with this particular dish.

So what does beetroot go with? Well between them Stephanie Alexander and Beverley Sutherland Smith list 35 compatible ingredients. To my mind it depends on whether you are taking a northern and eastern European/Russian approach or a Mediterranean approach. To the northerners it's smoked fish, game, pork, sour cream, horseradish, onions and potatoes, and to the southerners it's feta and goat's cheese, walnuts, oranges, mint and yoghurt. The Americans make hashes with it and they call it beets, but I don't think the Asians use it much, although I notice that Madhur Jaffrey had a couple of Indian recipes in her World Vegetarian Cookbook. The Romans apparently only ate the leaves - which is sort of weird, because it's only recently that we have started eating the leaves again.

it is an incredibly versatile vegetable - you can even make cakes with it because one form is used to make sugar - apparently almost all of Europe's sugar nowadays is made from sugar beet. And you can use the leaves too - in salads, stir-fried - any way you would use spinach or silver beet to which it is related. A brief scan of my recipe database and my books brought up recipes for dips, ravioli, relishes, pickles, salads galore, a tarte tatin, borscht of course (a soup), couscous, gravlax and various ways of making it more interesting as an accompanying vegetable. I am willing to bet that at the right time of year, if you go out to eat in a modern restaurant there will be beetroot on the menu somewhere. We are going out to a Sicilian restaurant tonight - it will be interesting to see if beetroot is on the menu.

It's come a long way from the beetroot of my youth. You used to buy it already cooked at the greengrocer's and then you would peel it, slice it and soak it in malt vinegar with a little sugar. It was the only way you ever ate it. And let's not forget that what makes a hamburger Australian is the canned, sliced beetroot that is put into it! i have no idea where that came from.

To bake them, wrap them tightly in foil. They are done when they feel softish. If you boil them, do not peel and leave them with the root and a bit of the tops intact. Otherwise they will bleed all their colour away.