Beet salad with mandarin oranges, rosemary, walnuts, bleu cheese, and walnuts

Bunch fresh beets left whole, scrubbed, tops trimmed at one inch (use greens for something else), and root ends left intact but clean.
Orange marmalade
Apple cider vinegar
Crumbled rosemary
Walnut pieces
Mandarin oranges
Crumbled bleu cheese

1. Steam the beets in a steamer basket set in a sauce pan with enough water in the bottom to come up almost to the bottom of the steamer basket. (Keep the water at a simmer until a knife pierces the largest beet easily.
2. Remove the beets from the steamer and let cool until cool enough to handle.
3. Dilute a smallish amount of orange marmalade with some apple cider vinegar (the ratio being somewhere between 2:1 to 1:1), to pour over the beets once they’ve been diced. Go easy on this; the beets will exude their own juice). Stir in some crumbled rosemary leaves
4. Rub the skins off the beets and pull off the tops and the bottoms. Cut the beets in ½” cubes. Put the cubes in a plastic bowl and pour the orange marmalade/cider vinegar mixture over them. Stir gently. Cover and refrigerate.
5. Before serving, put the walnut pieces in a small dry frying pan over low heat and stir occasionally for 5-10 minutes until the walnuts are warm and fragant. When ready to serve, place beets in serving dish; arrange mandarin orange sliced around the edge of the dish; and sprinkle on the walnuts and crumbled bleu cheese. These components can be passed separately so that the diners can garnish their own helpings to suit.

About Eileen Buholtz

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