Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Beet dip for crudite and summer parties

Moro East is definitely a current favorite cookbook around my kitchen. Every recipe I've made has been utterly delicious. And pretty much every single one I've thought sounded a little weird. Pumpkin Pistou? F-ing amazing. So I know nothing and this is why it's good to get new cookbooks from time to time.

I actually bought it in Australia, at this lovely little cookbook store (yes! a whole store of only cookbooks!) on Gertrude Street in Melbourne. And while you can order it from the comfort of your own computer via Amazon, I felt compelled to buy it IN AUSTRALIA as a souvenir of a delicious dinner we had at Añada. Apparently one of the co-owners is also involved in Moro (in London). Good enough connection for me. I'd had my eye on the book for months before our trip so, you know, all I needed was a teeny push in the right direction and the credit card was out.

I digress.

The point of this post is the beet dip. And like some of the other recipes I've tried from this book, I was a teensy bit skeptical. Beets with tahini. Hmm. Sounded at least more interesting than Whole Foods hummus. The first time I made it was for Melanie's shower and it turned out to be the culinary rage of the party. Serve it with crudite and maybe some toasty flatbread and cheese. Oh my.





Beet dip with tahini

(From Moro East, with a few additions/changes by moi)

Preheat oven to 400.

600 g raw beets (i would say that's like 6-8 medium beets? I didn't weigh mine, but eyeballing it seemed to work. If you're anal, the kitchen scale is your friend)

1 garlic clove, coarsely chopped
6 T extra virgin olive oil
2 T tahini
3-4 T chopped fresh mint (depending on how minty you like your dip)
2 t red wine vinegar
Juice of 1 medium lemon
sea salt and pepper

The actual recipe calls for boiled beets. I've never boiled beets before and I do love them roasted so I decided to roast mine for this recipe. I'm sure you could boil them with great success, but I'll proceed with the roasting.

Actually, I'm not going to type out the roasting instructions again. You can see them in my Beet Salad post last month. So... roast and peel the beets.

Coarsely chop them and transfer them to the food processor. Add garlic, olive oil, and tahini and whiz in the processor until you have a nice semi-smooth puree. Then add the mint, lemon, vinegar, salt and pepper and whiz for one moment more. You can probably do it all at once, but I like to imagine that the fresher tastes bubble to the surface when you separate the whizzing. The Moro recipe has you mix the mint, vinegar, salt and pepper in by hand, but I say if you have the processor out, use it for everything.

Taste. (You will die). Add more salt, pepper, or lemon if you like. And voila!

The lemon is my addition, so if you'd like to stick to the real recipe, leave it out. And I added more mint than they call for, but I love mint and herby tastes.

16 comments:

Simply Mel {Reverie} said...

My favorite souvenirs are books! And I always use the reciept as my bookmark as a little reminder of exactly where I found it.

Going to try the recipe this weekend - my little crumb loves hummus, so this will be a beet bonus!

fresh365 said...

Great timing- I just came over to your site to get that other beet recipe you posted! Now I am in a predicament!

On Second Street said...

Yum! I cannot wait to try it!

100layercake said...

mmmmmm...just made the beet dip. and yes, almost died. is sooo good!

*amanda

Sally Mae said...

Thank you for these delicious beet recipes. I hope you don't mind, but I had to write about them myself. Seriously, so good:)

http://sallysimpleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/beetroot.html

Julia from Dozen Flours said...

I had a beet dip similar to this as a child that I grandmother used to make in late summer and oh how I've longed to make it again! *Thank you* for sharing! I plan to buy the cookbook too!

And an entire store of just cookbooks? What a fantastic idea. And I too love to buy a cookbook on vacation of a lovely reminder of my holiday. So glad to read that I'm not the only one to do that.

Unknown said...

I made this and everyone LOVED it!! Yummy!!

What he ate, what I ate. said...

I heart a beet. Cannot wait to try this!

What he ate, what I ate. said...

I heart a beet. Cannot wait to try this!

Mermaids of the Lake said...

That beet dip sounds amazing and I plan to try it. Thanks!

betty said...

A thousand thanks - this is DELICIOUS! Love your blog, and all the great food & wedding inspiriation.

Wendy said...

This was FABULOUS! Thank you!

glen said...

thanks for teh recipe)))))

bloguay.com/mueblesmadrid294 said...

Quite helpful data, lots of thanks for this article.

moneymenow said...

hanks for teh recipe

Batya said...

Now that was delicious. Unfortunately I halved the serving because I only had 3 large beets-- and now it's almost all gone! Yum. Yum. Yum. I love The Moro Cookbook. I'll have to get Moro East. Thanks for the post.