The rich benefits of the humble beetroot

The ancient gardeners of the Mediterranean region were happy to find the beet. Or, I should say, its ancestor. Gathered in the wild, its leaves were tasty and tender enough to make their way into cultivation.

Thus protected and nurtured, it used its long taproot to store some of the nutrients lavished on it, and so it was guided by its cultivators, who selected the most tender-rooted plants and saved their seed, to become the beet of today.

In the ancient days of my childhood, we ate beets boiled, sliced and served in a gooey sauce made of sugar, vinegar, cornstarch and butter. This popular recipe was called Harvard beets, perhaps in reference to the deep-red colour emblematic of that famous institution. Perhaps it was a well-intentioned effort to tame the strong, earthy flavour that some find off-putting in beets. Beets do, in fact, contain a substance present in soil called geosmin, whose aroma is released after a soaking rain.

Gardeners have always liked beets. (Prepare beds for spring sowing; beets like deep loam and moist soil. Thin them to four inches apart, and use the thinned seedlings as baby greens.) But these vegetables have acquired a wider following among gourmets in recent years. Chefs eager to source more produce from local farms are turning to root vegetables in those months when fresh greens are scarce and tomatoes absent. Health-conscious diners love beets for their vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre. As for antioxidants, beets announce in a blaze of colour their stores of betaines and betalains. Those are similar to the anthocyanins found in foods such as red cabbage, amaranth and razzle-dazzle purple cauliflower.

Beet cookery has also become better and more varied. In the 1970s, there were a lot of beet salads in which the roots were grated or shredded, sometimes along with carrots. Nowadays, you’re more likely to see cooked beets in a restaurant salad, sometimes with greens and often with goat cheese. Raw beets don’t release their natural sweetness as well as carrots do. They’re almost woody in their texture, thanks to phenolic compounds that reinforce their cell walls, and they are almost unique in the way they retain their structure during cooking. This can be an asset, because no matter how long you cook a beet, it will never turn to mush.

Beets that are boiled or even steamed release a lot of their colour, along with their nutrients, into the water. Cooking them slowly until all of the water evaporates, then stirring butter into the pan and tossing the beets in it, is one way to overcome that flaw. But there’s another solution. Baking beets in a way that releases as little moisture as possible is so satisfying that it’s now my favourite technique. It requires little vigilance.

I wrap foil around whole unpeeled beets (or large chunks if the beets are huge) and put them in a covered casserole at 160 Celcius for two or three hours, and the beets come out softened, almost caramelised, with their flavour and sugars concentrated. The skins slip right off when they’re cool enough to touch.

Then what? I can slice and butter them. I can add them to a hearty borscht with cabbage, onions and maybe some beef, passing sour cream at the table so everyone can add a dollop. I keep baked beets in the fridge, ready to be sliced quickly to add substance and rich colour to a salad.

The other day I took an odd bit of inspiration from French chefs of the Renaissance, who would cut up thin slices of cold cooked beet and trim them in the shapes of crescent moons or stars, as decorations. A lofty purpose for a root of the earth.