A salad, made slowly

Take three golden beets and scrub them vigorously. Remove the stems and the long stringy root and the astonishing quantities of soil. Place them in a baking dish with 1/4 inch of water. Cover the dish and put it in a 375° oven until they are cooked through, perhaps 40 minutes, perhaps longer. Let them cool awhile, out of the dish.

Later, when you can handle them, peel the beets and cut them into chunks, maybe 1" by 1" by 1/2", or whatever seems nice to you. Put these in a bowl and toss them with the juice of one lemon. Then sprinkle them generously with ground sumac, which you doubtless have on hand. If you don't have any ground sumac, you can use a lot of lemon juice instead, and it will taste good, but it won't be the same salad, I'm sorry. Let them steep.

Meanwhile, slice a very small onion, red or white, very very thinly. Put it in a bowl of ice water.

After an hour or so, arrange the beets in a wide flat bowl with some cherry tomatoes, pitted Kalamata olives, basil, and chopped parsley. Dry the onion and add it, too. Drizzle a little olive oil over top, sprinkle some kosher salt (not too much, remember those olives), grind some pepper. Swish around. Shave some nice hard cheese over top. Let it sit around at room temperature some more.

Later, again, just before you serve it, sprinkle a little wine vinegar or lemon juice over everything. It will be sweet and acid and bracing, all together. Its natural foil is something mellow and unctuous, something chewy and mild: bread and butter, pasta and cream sauce, frittata and potatoes.

Posted by redfox at August 25, 2002 06:07 PM (recipes)

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