Roasted beets with dill cream

Today’s recipe is a simple and quick to make dish of roasted beets on a bed of dill cream. It makes for a great side or can form a part of a larger mezze-like spread. It can also make for a light lunch when combined with a hearty slide of sourdough bread and maybe some beans for some protein.

While this dish may look fancy, it’s really very simple. The classic combination of beets and dill are at the centre of this roasted beet dish, natural sweetness of beets which gets even more intense when they are roasted in the oven plays well against fresh and ever so slightly aniseedy flavour of fresh dill. The roasted beets with dill cream dish is partly inspired by one of my favourite Greek mezze dishes, Παντζάρια με Σκορδαλιά, which is beets paired with a creamy and rather garlicky dipping sauce often made with almonds. Similar idea, but a very different flavour profile and different texture too. As opposed to skordalia (skordo means garlic in Greek), which is always left fairly chunky, this creamy dill dip is beautifully smooth. We’ve enjoyed this simple dish for lunch alongside some toasted sourdough and some beans which I banged into the oven with the beets (do that if you want to add some protein) so I hope you’ll too.

MORE ABOUT THE INGREDIENTS

BEETS: Beetroots are so good for you and can be delicious. My preferred way to have them is to roast them in the oven as that makes them fudgy in texture and brings out their natural sweetness.

CASHEWS: Raw cashews soaked in water make a beautifully creamy and smooth dressing or sauce. If you cannot have cashews or would rather not use them for whatever reason, you can achieve a very similar effect with sunflower seeds, again they will need soaking before you blend. Typically sunflower seeds do not yield as appetising colour as the cashews, but it does not matter so much in this instance, especially if you add a bit of fresh flat leaf parsley to turn the green dial up a bit. When it comes to soaking, you can either soak your nuts or seeds in cold water overnight or at the very minimum in boiling water for 20-30 minutes. Drain well before using.

CAPERS: I did not know, until I moved to Greece and saw capers being harvested, that capers are particular flower buds pickled in a salty brine. They add delicious savoury and briny flavour to things and this dill cream benefits from that addition in particular. I used capers in a mild brine as opposed to the ones preserved in oil or in salt. If you use the salt preserved variety, be sure to rinse them off well first.

DILL: Dill and beetroot are a classic pairing so combining sweet and tender roasted beets with dill dressing was no brainer. I knew they would hit it off!! Unfortunately, while dill adds bags of flavour to the dressing, it does not produce a particularly interesting colour so for that reason I added a handful of parsley leaves. It makes for a prettier dressing, plus these herbs are sympatico with each other so it’s all above board.

MISO: Miso paste adds a bit of delicious funkiness and saltiness to this simple dressing. If you don’t have it don’t worry, but if you do it’s a perfect dish to use it in.

LEMON: A dash of lemon juice in the dressing balances the flavours beautifully and works very well with sweetness of beets. Add as little or as much as you like, I settled for two tablespoons.

NUTRITIONAL YEAST: Nutritional yeast is a staple vegan seasoning, it gives the dressing a nice depth of flavour and a hint of ‘cheesiness’ sans cheese.

PISTACHIOS: Both the roast beets and the dressing have soft texture so topping the dish with some pistachios for crunch is what the doctor ordered. Roast your pistachios first (in a dry frying pan, on low heat) to coax even more flavour out of them.

HOW TO MAKE IT?

1) PREP & ROAST THE BEETS

Clean your beets well, top and tail them, peel them and finally cut into either 6 or 8 wedges, depending on their size. Coat in olive oil, season with salt and pepper and roast in a pre-heated oven until knife tender.

2) BLEND THE DRESSING

Place all of the dressing ingredients – drained cashews, capers, lemon juice, miso paste, nutritional yeast, dill fronds and, if you want a better colour dressing, some parsley leaves – in a small blender or smoothie maker. Add enough water to blend (about 100 ml – 120 ml) and blend until silky smooth. Taste and adjust the seasoning to taste. Spread on a platter, top with roasted beets and chopped pistachios and serve.