They’re quite good hot, room temperature and chilled
I keep making these red beets and have included them in test kitchen photos, thinking I made them for an article in the past. I didn’t. So here’s the recipe that has been my preferred way to cook beets for several years.
Mark Guydish | For Times Leader
You can simplify this recipe, as I sometimes do, by using only the white wine vinegar and some brown sugar, skipping everything else. But the other ingredients make for a more compelling finished taste.
Mark Guydish | For Times Leader
Here’s a recent meal of braised red beets with mashed potatoes and some porcupine meatballs.
Mark Guydish | For Times Leader
Long-time readers may have noticed these beets in photos of other meals I’ve made, and whenever I added those images to a story I always assumed the beets had been featured in a previous test kitchen. Yet a search through all my past columns clearly shows I’ve never shared the recipe. Well, here it is.
I’ve never been a big fan of red beets. Most versions I’ve had lacked flavor. Despite that, I do occasionally nosh on them raw for the health benefits (almost but not quite following MT’s example of eating them as if they are apples; she doesn’t even bother to peel them, but I find raw beets too bitter that way.)
My feelings about beets changed when I tried this recipe from the folks at America’s Test Kitchen/Cook’s Country. They promised that braising them with the skins on keeps the nutrients intact, incorporating them into a sauce. The beets keep their flavor, mellowed a bit and sweetened with a little brown sugar. Adding a white vinegar, lemon zest, shallot, almonds and some herbs really enriches the final dish, though I often make a simpler version with only the vinegar and sugar.
It’s best to use beets of similar size — two to three inches in diameter works well. But if you have some big ones and small ones, you can still get pretty even cooking by making sure they are sliced to roughly the same thickness. It’s helpful (though not absolutely necessary, to slice them in half one at a time until you fill the bottom of the pan or Dutch oven you are using, though I have cut them into smaller pieces to fit and it worked fine.
And as far as I’m concerned, while these are great still warm, they are fine at room temperature and even refreshing straight from the fridge the next day.
Dobru chut!
Braised red beets with almonds and lemon (America’s Test Kitchen)
1 ½ pounds beets, trimmed and halved horizontally
1 ¼ cups water
Salt and pepper
3 tablespoons white vinegar
1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar
1 shallot, sliced thin
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
½ cup whole almonds, toasted and chopped (slivered almonds work fine, too)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
Place beets, cut side down, in single layer in 11-inch straight-sided sauté pan or Dutch oven. Add water and ¼ teaspoon salt; bring to simmer over high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until beets are tender and tip of paring knife inserted into beets meets no resistance, 45 to 50 minutes.
Transfer beets to cutting board. Increase heat to medium-high and reduce cooking liquid, stirring occasionally, until pan is almost dry, 5 to 6 minutes. Add vinegar and sugar; return to boil; and cook, stirring constantly with heat-resistant spatula, until spatula leaves wide trail when dragged through glaze, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove pan from heat.
When beets are cool enough to handle, rub off skins with paper towel or dish towel and cut into ½-inch wedges. Add beets, shallot, lemon zest, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper to glaze and toss to coat. Transfer beets to serving dish; sprinkle with almonds, mint, and thyme; and serve.
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