I made this lovely beet salad for a Passover celebration with my friends after being inspired by a similar beet salad at Ad Hoc restaurant in Napa Valley.
Salad Ingredients:
- 6 red beets (I bought 2 bunches with the leaves at Whole Foods)
- 6 golden yellow beets (I bought 2 bunches with the leaves at Whole Foods)
- 4 clementines
- About 1/2 cup of radish slivers (I bought radish slices from the salad bar at whole foods and then sliced into slivers)
- 3 Hass Avocados (cut in large cubes)
- About 1/2 cup of roasted chopped pistachios
- olive oil
- salt
Instructions:
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees
- Rinse dirt off beets and you may need to scrub
- Cut the beets off from their stems and leaves and throw out the leaves or look up another recipe to use them in
- Wrap each beet in aluminum foil (pour olive oil and salt over beets before closing foil). Note: you can put several beets in a shared foil pouch if you want but don't mix the yellow beets with the red beets). Put foiled wrapped beets on a sheet tray in case of leakage.
- Roast the beets for 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes until a fork can be pierced in easily. They should be tender but not mushy.
- Unwrap the foil and let them cool so you can handle the beets (save the olive oil and juices if you want later to add to the dressing).
- Once beets are warm vs hot take a paper towel and gently rub the skins off the beets and they will look perfect and shiny. Note: wear gloves to avoid hand staining.
- Then slice the beets in quarters and you may need to cut each quarter in half
- Note: all the steps above to roast beets can be done the day before. Pour some olive oil over the beets and put in plastic containers (red and yellow separate). Store in fridge overnight.
- Now I got fancy before putting in the fridge overnight and poured regular olive oil and a little fig balsamic vinegar on the red beets and a blood orange olive oil on the yellow beets but regular olive oil will work just fine.
- Once all ingredients are cool arrange on a platter and sprinkle with salt and pour a little olive oil over it.
Optional: I made a homemade citrus vinegraitte by mixing together:
- 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
- juice and zest of one lemon
- juice and zest of half a naval orange
- zest of a grapefruit (no juice)
- a couple pinches of kosher salt
- 1/4 cup of sugar
- whisk it
- slowly stream in about 1/2 cup of olive oil while whisking and then 1/2 cup of canola oil while whisking.
- taste it and add more sugar or salt if needed. At the end I poured in some of the roasted beet juice the beets had been sitting in to give it a pink color.
Enjoy!
Note: this was so good that I made it again for Passover 2015. This time I added feta! I also skipped the dressing and just put plenty of olive oil over it and a drizzle of honey over the beets for sweetness!
