Rebecca’s Recipes of the Week: Two Easy Beetroot Salads | Canalside Community Food

Here are two very easy recipes for summer salads. The first one combines raw, shredded beetroot with a simple vinaigrette. For the second one the beetroot is cooked with allspice, before being combined with red onions and parsley. I love them both.

Shredded Beetroot Salad

Ingredients
beetroots
olive oil
sherry vinegar
salt and pepper

Preparation
Peel the raw beetroot and shred it. I use the fine blade on my ancient Moulinex but you can of course shred it using any device you favour.

Prepare a vinaigrette by combining two parts of olive oil to one part sherry vinegar (and salt and pepper to taste) in a small screw-capped jar. Shake vigorously. For 400g of beetroot I would use about 3 tablespoons of olive oil and 1.5 tablespoons sherry vinegar. Taste the dressing to see if you like it. If it’s too sharp add a little more oil.

Combine the shredded beetroot with the vinaigrette. You can add some chopped parsley, or feta, or toasted walnuts, or all three, if you like. Serve.

Beetroot and Red Onion Salad
You’ll notice this contains no oil at all.
Serves 4.

Ingredients
500g beetroot
3 whole cloves
3 whole allspice
1 bay leaf
1 large red onion, peeled, halved, and sliced thin.
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
salt and pepper, to taste
½ teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped

Preparation
Place the beetroots, cloves, allspice and bay leaves in a pan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and then simmer until the beetroots are tender when you poke them with a fork. This might take from 25 to 45 minutes (or longer), depending on the size of the beetroots. Leave them to cool in the liquid.

Meanwhile combine the onion, vinegar, salt and pepper, and sugar in a bowl. Use your hands to scrunch up the onions a bit and leave them to marinate in the liquid. This will soften the raw onion a bit and make it less sharp.

When the beetroots are cool enough for you to handle remove them from the liquid and peel them. (Discard the liquid at this stage.) Slice them thick or thin, as you prefer. Combine them with the onion mixture and the parsley, toss well, taste to see if it needs more salt or pepper, and serve.