Cathy Katin-Grazzini
Cathy’s Kitchen Prescription LLC
www.cathyskitchenprescription.com
Salad with Roasted Beets and Citrus
This bright, flavorful salad is juicy, earthy, creamy, peppery, with just the right balance of sweetness and acidity. It includes tiny roasted gold and red beets, pink grapefruit, and red mandarin orange. Tiny colorful radishes, slivers of shallot, and arugula add their peppery sharpness and crunch. The whole shebang is dotted with soy labneh (yogurt cheese), dill, and scattered pistachio nuts. It scarcely requires dressing, but if you like, try a soy yogurt base with Dijon, roasted golden beets, with a hint of pepper, and garlic.
Prep time 4 hours to strain the yogurt for labneh, 1 hour to roast the beets, 20 minutes to clean, cut, and compose salad elements
Serves 3 to 4
3 cups unsweetened Greek-style soy yogurt, 2 cups strained for 4 hours, 1 cup for dressing
8 baby red beets, peeled, roasted, cut in half or quartered into bite-sized pieces
11 baby golden beets, peeled, roasted, cut in half or quartered into bite-sized pieces
2 packed cups baby arugula
1 red grapefruit, sectioned
2 red mandarin or blood oranges, sectioned
1 bunch mixed color or French breakfast radishes, roots trimmed, large or damaged leaves removed, sliced in half
1 shallot, peeled, sliced
Small sprigs fresh dill
2 tablespoons pistachio nuts
¼ teaspoon granulated garlic
Grinds or pinch of ground white pepper
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons shiro (mild, white) miso paste (optional)
Preheat the oven to 400°F. To roast the beets, place the peeled, cut beets in two parchment paper bags, one for the red beets, one for the golden. To make the parchment bag, tear off a large piece of parchment paper, fold it in half, place the beets cut side down and spaced ½-inch apart. Fold up the edges several times and staple them to seal. Place the bags on one or two cooking sheets and roast the beets for one hour.
To make the labneh cheese, pour two cups of the thick soy yogurt onto a 12” square of unbleached muslin. Gather up the sides and twist to form a sack, and tie with a piece of string. Suspend the yogurt bag over the sink or place in a strainer placed over a bowl. Strain the yogurt for 4 hours, during which time much of the soy whey will drip out, leaving a dense creamy cheese -- and a natural probiotic if you make your own unpasteurized yogurt. This dressing will be thick and spoonable. If you prefer one that is pourable, thin slightly with 1 to 2 tablespoons of water.
To make the dressing, if using, place 3 small roasted golden beets in a high-speed blender. Add 1 cup of soy yogurt, the granulated garlic, pepper, Dijon mustard, and shiro miso, if using. Blend until the mix is velvety smooth and uniform. Taste to correct seasonings as you like.
On individual plates compose the salad, starting with a base of arugula and any tiny raw beet leaves if your beets provide them. Place 3 to 4 pieces each of red and golden roasted beets over the greens. Between the beets alternate sections of grapefruit and orange. Add 3 to 4 radish halves. Sprinkle slices of shallot here and there. Add small 5 to 6 espresso-sized spoonfuls of soy labneh. Lastly, add small sprigs of dill and sprinkle a few pistachios over the top.
Serve at room temperature with or without the dressing, as you like.
