Summer pressure cooking: a beetroot bonanza

It is summer, apparently. I am looking out of the window now to a dull and overcast day. A wind keeps whipping up, there is the occasional spatter of angry sounding rain and the air is damp, but still surprisingly warm. When the weather is like this, it can be hard to know what to eat. I never want anything too heavy in the summer months – I had a carb laden pub lunch yesterday which knocked me out for the rest of the afternoon. So salads feature quite heavily in my summer repertoire. This is not the type of dish most people would associate with pressure cooking, but if you are regularly making salads with cooked elements – as I am, daily – then the pressure cooker is invaluable, especially when the thermostat rises and you want to keep your kitchen cool.

There are all the high carb salads of course – those with a rice, pasta, potato or bean base. But I frequently add small quantities of other grains to an otherwise vegetable based salad – quinoa, bulgar wheat, and as shown below, buckwheat groats are always good. So are a sprinkling of lentils. Then there is cooked meats, eggs, vegetables which have to be cooked (aubergines, all types of green beans), those which are often raw in salads but can also be cooked – carrot, courgette, celeriac, cauliflower most commonly but also the subject of this post, beetroot.

Bunched Beetroot

I used to always think about beetroot in terms of cold climate cuisines and winter and have sweet and earthy soups such as borscht and solyanka (recipes for which can be found in The Pressure Cooker Cookbook and Modern Pressure Cooking respectively) as part of my cold weather repertoire. My mother went through a phase of serving Swedish open sandwiches a lot when I was a child, and one of the most common toppings would be smoked mackerel mashed up with horseradish, over thinly sliced beetroot. I base a lot of meals around this combination as the elements work so well together. Smoky, oily mackerel, hot, peppery horseradish, sweet beetroot keep most of our tastebuds happy, even more so if you add a sharp, acid vinaigrette. And dispite loving all kinds of vinegar and citrus, I would never use pickled beetroot. I like a homemade, light instant pickle on my beetroot which is more like a dressing - but not the harsh, over vinegared stuff you buy in a jar or in the chiller cabinet.

Beetroot, does, however, feature heavily in the cuisines of much warmer climates. My main experience of this stems from my parents retiring to Greece back in 2000. I discovered that dressed beetroot, often warm and garlicky, featured heavily in all the tavernas, as part of a mezze or as a side. I’ve been incorporating it into my summer meals ever since.

Beetroot is one of those things that does well all year round and so is a permanent fixture in the farmers markets, greengrocers and supermarket. I can buy it bunched in the supermarket, but with leaves in the farmers market which is what I usually do when the majority of the bunch is green and perky. Depending on the time of year a bunch costs between £1.20 and £2.20 from the stall I use, for usually twice the amount you would get in a vacuum pack. Not much of a saving if you have to cook it conventionally, but it cooks very fast in a pressure cooker.

How to cook beetroot.

As I mention above, there are recipes for beetroot in both my pressure cooker books, but I realised recently that I had failed to note how long they take to cook whole. I cook them in the base of the pressure cooker in 1 cm of water. Small beetroots (up to 4cm diameter) take up to 5 minutes at HP, NPR, medium (5-7cm diambeter around 8 minutes, the largest (8cm +) up to 12 minutes. These timings give them a just soft of al dente texture which is how I prefer them, but also means there is leeway if you are cooking them further. As useful as the vacuum packed beetroot can be, it is very often slightly overcooked and flabby. You can also cook any size for just a minute or two and leave to stand for half an hour to 45 minutes off the heat – this is my souped up hay box method – for further fuel savings.

If you have taken them from your garden or allotment, or have bought them bunched, take off the leaves to use separately. The best way to do this it to twist towards the base of the stem, rather than cut them. Then put the beetroot in the cooker unpeeled. When they are cool enough to handle after cooking, you will find the skins slip off in a very satisfying way. Sometimes so easily they torpedo out of your hand, leaving skin behind.

Cooked beetroot

I keep cooked beetroot in the fridge, mainly for adding to sandwiches and salads, but also for adding to curries and casseroles. The one thing I will never do is add anything very creamy - the resultant pink it is quite triggering for anyone who has ever had to drink Pepto Bismol. Although it is also quite Barbie (before you ask, yes, I have seen the film and thoroughly enjoyed it) so perhaps I have missed a trick being quite so defiantly not on trend. Oh - and I do prefer it room temperature to chilled so have to remember to take it out of the fridge at least half an hour before I want to use it.

The Recipes

Beetroot, Smoked Fish and Blackberry Salad

I am going to be writing much more about blackberries very soon – they are abundant here already – but on the first day of foraging for them this season, I had planned a lunchtime salad of beetroot, smoked fish and buckwheat and had the happy idea to add blackberries too, both whole and crushed into the vinaigrette.

For the salad:

250g cooked beetroot, cut into wedges

200g spinach or other salad leaves

½ cucumber, diced

150g cherry tomatoes, halved (optional)

200g smoked trout or mackerel fillets, skinned and pulled into chunks

200g ripe blackberries

A few small mint leaves

For the buckwheat:

1 tbsp olive oil

100g buckwheat groats

½ tsp ground allspice

For the dressing:

1 shallot, finely chopped

1 tbsp sherry or red wine vinegar

50g ripe blackberries

4 tbsp olive or hazelnut oil

1 tsp honey

2 tsp wholegrain mustard

A squeeze of lemon juice

First cook the buckwheat. Heat the oil in your pressure cooker and add the buckwheat groats. Fry, stirring constantly, until the groats smell pleasantly toasted, then stir in the allspice. Season with salt and pepper, then cover with 200ml water. Stir briefly, making sure no groats cling to the side and are pushed into the liquid.

Bring up to high pressure and reduce heat to maintain the pressure. Cook for 2 minutes, then remove from the heat and leave to drop pressure naturally. Open the lid and fluff up the groats. Leave to cool.

To make the dressing, put the shallot in a small bowl and sprinkle with salt. Add blackberries and roughly crush with a fork. Pour over the vinegar and leave to stand for half an hour. Whisk in the remaining ingredients and taste for seasoning – add a little more salt and some pepper if need be.

To assemble, arrange the buckwheat over a large serving platter and drizzle over some of the dressing. Add the leaves, beetroot, cucumber, tomatoes and mackerel. Drizzle over most of the remaining dressing and toss very lightly. Sprinkle with the blackberries and mint and serve immediately.

A Beetroot and Paneer Curry

We can’t get through half a week in this house without curry featuring somewhere. This is fresh and warming at the same time, perfect for a light lunch with some flatbread. The slightly garish version below is made with tinned tomatoes so very red, but full disclosure, I much prefer the flavour and more muted colour when it is made with fresh. I served it with a mushroom and green bean curry on a colourless and gloomy July day.

The curry leaves aren’t essential here, but the pressure cooker does a very good job of pushing their flavour into the other ingredients so worth using if you can get hold of them. Most supermarkets sell small packets of them now. It is my ambition to keep a healthy tree of them growing, but I am not having much success so far.

For the curry:

2 tbsp coconut oil

20 curry leaves

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 large onion, very finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, crushed or grated

15g ginger, grated

1.5 tbsp curry powder or use the mix below

200g tomatoes, fresh or tinned, pureed

250g cooked beetroot, cut into wedges

250g paneer, cut into 2cm dice

100g spinach or similar

For the spice mix (or use a favourite curry powder):

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp chilli powder (strength up to you)

1 tsp ground fenugreek

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

½ tsp cinnamon

A pinch of ground cloves

To garnish:

Green chillies, finely chopped

A few sprigs coriander, chopped

Lemon wedges

Heat the oil in your pressure cooker. When it is hot, add the curry leaves and mustard seeds. Listen to them crackle and pop, then add the onion. Saute until a light golden brown, then add the garlic, ginger and spices and stir for a further 2 minutes.

Add the tomatoes with 100ml water and season with salt and pepper. Close the lid and bring up to high pressure. Adjust the heat to maintain the pressure and cook at high pressure for 5 minutes, then fast release.

Add the beetroot and paneer to the sauce, then sprinkle the spinach on top. Close the lid and bring up to high pressure again. Immediately remove from the heat and leave to drop pressure naturally. Stir the spinach through the curry.

Serve with green chillies for extra heat, a little coriander and lemon wedges to squeeze over at the table.

Simply Dressed Garlic Beetroot

This is a Greek favourite, a staple of every mezze, and often served with the thick stems of the beetroot, but rarely the leaves, which are used elsewhere. It is usually served warm so I cook the beetroot and dress it while still hot and then leave to marinate until it is just the warm side of room temperature. You can garnish with any herbs, I prefer mint or sometimes a little summer savoury.

Keep it as a side dish/part of a mezze as is or dress it up. One of my favourite things to do with warm beetroot is to add a bit of crunch by way of lightly toated hazelnuts. I might swap out the olive oil for hazelnut oil too. And then vary the citrus – slices of a sharp orange is a wonderful addition. You can also sprinkle over crumbled feta. There is an inevitable Barbie bleed when you do so, on the underside of the feta, but if you don’t look too closely, it is manageable.

4 reasonable sized beetroots, cooked and peeled

3 tbsp olive oil

2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced

1 tsp sherry or red wine vinegar

A squeeze of lemon juice

Herbs to garnish

Slip the skins from the just cooked beetroot and slice into rounds. Measure the olive oil into a small bowl and add the garlic. Leave to marinade for half an hour, then whisk in the vinegar, lemon juice and plenty of seasoning. Pour over the beetroot and leave to stand for at least another half an hour. Sprinkle with herbs and serve immediately.

And finally….

what to do with the leaves?

Tiny beetroot leaves work very well in a mixed leaf salad, but the larger ones are best cooked. You can just steam them in a splash of water and season, bringing up to high pressure and fast releasing. You can also saute a little garlic first in some olive oil, add the leaves, cook in the same way, then dress with lemon juice. Either way, season with salt and black pepper.

There you have it. Quite a bumper crop of beetroot recipes. If you have any specific ingredients you want to get to grips with pressure cooking, please let me know in the comments.