Beetroot & rhubarb salad

September 26, 2018

Here's an Ottolenghi recipe I dug up from 7 years ago! It's a salad that centres on a crimson sweet'n'sour medley of roasted beetroot, rhubarb and pomegranate molasses. 

It's got a fairly restrained ingredient list by Ottolenghi standards, and comes together without too much fuss on a weeknight. The beetroots take a while to roast, admittedly, but they don't need to be handled too much, their skin comes off easily post-roast, and they're beautifully tender. I'm going to use this approach again and again. The rhubarb's even less effort sitting on the second oven shelf, the dressing just needs a little shake in a jar, and then there's dabs of blue cheese and a sprinkle of fresh parsley on top.

I tossed in some fresh green leaves and called this a meal, though I'll confess that the dense beetroots and rich cheese didn't keep me quite as full as I hoped they would. Storing the components separately allowed me to re-make the salad for days, and it still felt fresh every time.

Beetroot & rhubarb salad
(slightly adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe in The Guardian)

800g beetroots
300g rhubarb
1 tablespoon caster sugar
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
100g creamy blue cheese
20g parsley, roughly chopped
salt and pepper

Preheat an oven to 200°C.

Give the beetroots a little scrub and trim off any stems or roots. Wrap each beetroot separately in foil and place them all on a baking tray. Bake the beetroots until tender, up to 70 minutes (my medium-large ones were done in 60 minutes). Allow the beetroots to cool. When you can handle them, unwrap them, peel off the skin and chop the flesh into 2 cm cubes.

While the beetroots are baking, trim the rhubarb and slice it at a angle into 2.5 cm lengths. Toss together the rhubarb and sugar in a small bowl, then spread them out across a paper-lined baking tray. Roast the rhubarb for 10-12 minutes, until soft but still holding its shape. Allow the rhubarb to cool.

In a small glass jar, shake together the vinegar, pomegranate molasses, maple syrup, olive oil, allspice, salt and pepper until emulsified. In a medium bowl, toss together the beetroot cubes and this dressing.

On a serving dish, layer up the beetroot and rhubarb. Cut the blue cheese into dabs and drop them over the salad; sprinkle over the parsley.