Beetroot Recipes

A friend asked for a few beetroot recipes as she has a glut and is looking for inspiration, so here goes:

Pickled Beetroot (Fowlers Vac style)

8 medium beet
1 litre of vinegar, either malt or white
1/2 cup granulated sugar
25 g Sausetta Blended Spices (or just an italian herb mix) if you're not using this recipe in the 70's!

1. Wash beetroot to remove soil, taking care not to break skin for beets bleed easily;
2. Place in saucepan with sufficient water to cover, bring to the boil, simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or untiol, when beets are pinched, skin removes easily;
3. Remove beets to cold water. REmove skins;
4. Cut into slices, quarters or dice;
5. Place rubber rings on throughly clean and just rinsed FV  jars/bottles;
6. Fill bottles with prepared beets, shaking or bumping bottle on palm of hand to pack firmly, leaving 12 mm gap from top of bottle;
7. Combine venegar, sugar and Sausetta, cover, bring to boil, then cool. Strain through a fine nylon sieve or muslin.
8. When cold, pour over beets to the brim of the jar, using a pakcing stick to remove any air pockets;
9. Place covers and clips on bottles;
10. Place in the preserver with required level of cold water (mine is thermometre manual type, so i'd do 3/4 of the way up the jars;
11. Process in presever using 'standard pickle preserving method'. (see below)

Standard pickle preserving method:

THERMOMETRE CONTROL: Bring temp slowly up to 92 deg celcius, taking at least 45 minutes, then maintain this temp for 45 mins.
THERMOSTAT CONTROL: Turn thermostat dial to 92 degs, switch on at power point, and leave on for 1/14 hours. Remove jars from preserver to a wire cake rack or wooden board to cool for 12-18 hours. Remove clip. Test for vacuum seal. Wipe bottles clean with damp cloth. Label.




Hugh Fearnley's
Chocolate and Beetroot Brownies
(Clair, if you make these, I want one!)

Ingredients

• 250g/10oz good, dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken into pieces
• 250g/10oz unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus more for greasing
• 250g/10oz caster sugar
• 3 free-range eggs
• 150g self-raising flour (we used wholemeal self-raising)
• 250g beetroot, boiled until tender, peeled and grated

Method: How to make chocolate and beetroot brownies

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. Grease a baking tin of approximately 20 x 30 x 3cm and line the bottom with baking parchment.

2. Break up the chocolate into pieces, cut the butter into cubes then mix them up a bit in a heatproof bowl. As the oven begins to warm up, put the bowl onto one of the shelves for a few minutes until the chocolate and butter starts to melt. Stir, and put back into the oven for a few more minutes to melt completely.

3. Whisk the eggs and sugar together in a bowl until combined, then beat in the melted chocolate and butter until smooth. Gently fold in the flour then the beetroot – be careful not to overmix or it will make the brownies tough.

Be careful not to overmix or it will make the brownies tough.

4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth over the top with a spatula. Bake for about 20 minutes. A knife or skewer pushed into the middle should come out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it. Don't be tempted to overcook them! Remove the tin from the oven and leave on wire rack to cool before cutting into squares.

Roasted Beetroot and Orange Chutney
880 g beet, trimmed and washed;
zert of 1 orange
150 ml white wine vinegar
150 g white granulated sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1 medium red onion, peeled and finely chopped

Preheat oven to 200 deg c
Wrap beetroot in foil and bake for 1 hour, or until tender. Remove and cool a little before peeling. Grate the cooked beetroot.
Finely chop the orange zest and place it in a saucepan with vinegar, sugar, cinnamon stick, and onion, and bring slowly to the boil. Cook for 5 minutes, then add the grated beetroot and cook for 10 minutes until reduced. Remove from head, pour into warm, sterilised jars and seal.
Sterilise in a hot-water bath for 30 minutes, or store in fridge.

(Syd Pemberton - Jams & Preserves)

Beetroot and Apple Chutney

750 g beetroot, peeled and grated
500 g apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1 onion, chopped
750 ml malt vinegar
500 g white granulated sugar
1 tablespoon grated fresh giner
200 g raisins

Place all ingreds in a preserving pan, and leave to stand for 2 hours. Place pan over a medium heat and slowly bring contents to the boil. Simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours until reduced, thick and syrupy. Remove from heat, pour into warm, sterilised jars and seal.

also, check out one of my older posts for Beetroot Icecream!

Preserving, Fowlers Vacola Style

Last week I was lucky enough to be gifted a car load of Fowlers Vacola gear from a family friend, after spending the last 6 months trawling op shops, slowly acquiring second hand jars, clips and other parephernalia. Unfortunately most of our summer fruit crop has been harvested, and dealt with in other ways - fresh eating, jams and poaching mostly, so I will just be dreaming about what I will do with next year's apricots, mulberries, plums, peaches and nectarines. All is not lost though, as I have one later variety of plum, which is just hitting its straps now. I cleared all the fruit off it this morning - only about 25-30 plums. I think they were slightly under ripe as they were quite firm, but the resident possum has started eating them this week, so I thought it was time to salvage what I could.

I was given 3 preserving units - the thermometer type. They have been well used and loved by their previous owners, but I'm confident they will still work just as well as the day they were purchased.

Here's some photos of the gear I acquired:

One of the 3 preserving units:

 A book my hubby found me in an op shop for a couple of dollars - now my bible!

Purchased from ebay seller znak42 - great supplier - very fast delivery.

Jars from a local op shop - $1 each including lids. Only one of the 12 I bought was unusable - with a chip at the top, couldn't see it with the lid taped on, but I figure pretty good value all the same.

Some of the treasures from Shirley:

Left: Size 2 lids, they are so cute! She gave me some sauce bottles these lids.
Middle: Cherry pip remover
Right: I think something to remove core from apple/pear

Size 2 clips to go with the lids. Shirley's secret is to store the clips with a bit of vaseline on them, to prevent rusting, the wrap in cotton, see below:

Support crew and chief sampler:

Jar tongs, to remove the hot things from the preserving unit;
Wooden packing stick?
Various peelers and corers

 My gear!

 What I used today:

Also needed chopping board, peeler, knife

These are plastic lids that snap on to the preserving jars (these fit size 3 jars) once you have opened them and are storing in the fridge for a couple of days.

Support crew again:

These are my brand new rubber seals, my bible says to soak them in warm water for 15 minutes before stretching over the top of the jar. They are for 3 inch jars, but start about 2 inches across before stretching.

Rubber seal on the jar, with home grown plums. I only had enough for 2 jars of plums, and since the preserver takes 12 jars, I decided to do a batch of apples we scrumped from a roadside recently.

 Once the fruit is in the jar, you pour in either water, or sugar syrup. I used sugar syrup, about 2 cups water:1 cup sugar.

First jar ready to place into the preserver! Yeehaa!

The first lonely jar waiting to be accompanied by another 11 jars.

And here they are: (about 4 hours later!) 10 x apple, some with cinnamon stick, some with cloves, some with just the syrup, and 2 x plum:
Snug as bugs in a hug!

Thermomerom Shirley came up beautifully after a gentle wash, here it is keeping an eye on my precious fruit.

So now I am patiently waiting for the temp to reach 92 degrees celcius, where I"ll keep it for one hour.
Great rainy day activity!

Scrumpers Blackberry Jam

500g fresh blackberries
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons water
200g sugar (I used raw)

Chuck it all in the pot, cook away - I used jamsetter (pectin) to get mine to set.

We scrumped our berries from a roadside near Bright, VIC. Delish!