Curried Beets: Sounds Weird, Trying Anyway

You may remember my awesome neighbour? Not only is she an amazing photographer, she has a lovely garden that she lets me pillage on occasion. I was a little leery of the beets she gifted me with, but I found a recipe (in an old Chatelaine cookbook) that sounds interesting: Curried Beets. If anything can get me to love beets, it is a combination of Chatelaine and curry. What I really liked about this recipe is that it got rid of the "dirt" taste that I always associate with beets but kept the nice firm texture and undertones.

Also, me big seester gave me a metric tonne of spices and a spice encyclopedia back on my birthday, so I am going to make a different kind of curry, just for kicks. And on!

For the curry (massale), you will need:

2 Tbsp coriander seeds
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp cardamom pods
1 tsp whole cloves
1/2 piece cinnamon stick
1 tsp ground chili (or flakes)
1 tsp grated nutmeg

I like this curry blend because it tastes very similar to the Rogan Josh mixture, without the crazy Thai chili heat. It is super easy: dry roast the whole spices - coriander, cumin, peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon and cardamom (normally I would advocate for removing the seeds from the pods, otherwise it gets a little bark-y up in there, but dry roasting them makes them brittle and they break right down) in a frying pan at medium heat until they smell and gain a little bit of colour, set aside to cool. When cool, process in a spice grinder then stir in the chili and nutmeg. If you are using chili flakes as I am, throw them in the bottom of the spice grinder and add in the roasted spices on top before processing. Done!

Measure

So pretty

Just in the warm pan, about 30 seconds to a minute is enough

Little bit of colour...

Grate the nutmeg

Grind cooled spices then add to nutmeg

For the curried beets, you will need:

1 1/2 lbs beets, unpeeled and stems trimmed
1 medium onion, sliced
2 tsp butter
1 tsp curry powder (see above!)
1/2 tsp cumin
Cinnamon, salt & pepper
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar

Not much prep here, just slice your onions and trim the stems of the beets. You can use the beet greens as you would spinach, they wilt about the same and have lots of nutritive benefits. Do NOT use them the same way you would kale, nooo bueno.

Back to the beets themselves! Place the trimmed beets in a pot full of cold water, bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes, until slightly underdone. That is a super lame descriptor, but it's all I got. Time it! Set aside and run some cold water over.

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add in the sliced onion and cook until almost soft, about 3 minutes.

I'm using my new sauté pan so that it knows what it's in for

Sprinkle on the curry and cumin, cook for 2 more minutes. Turn off and set aside.

The beet skins should just rub right off, fingers crossed, then cut them into a small-ish dice.

Return the pan to heat, add the beets and cook for 2 more minutes, stirring to coat the beets in the buttery, curry-y goodness. Serve!

Since I pretty much followed the recipe in the book, I will use their calcs for calories, minus a teaspoon of butter (a whole tablespoon seemed obscene): 45 calories per serving, six servings total.

Neaaaarrrrr

Far!

Enjoy!

A Tale of Two Sides

Tonight we had my in-laws over; I decided to make baked salmon, you know, because it had been almost a whole WEEK, and I really wanted to make curried basmati rice as the side. However, as my in-laws have what I call Traditional (note the capital "T") tastes, I figured I'd better cover my bases with some roasted potatoes as well.

Zee roasted potatoes

And the curried basmati rice

I will start with the potatoes, as those need some oven time while you mess with the other.

You will need:

5 or 6 medium red-skinned  potatoes, adjust for how many people you are feeding. I used 6smallish ones for 4 adults
1/4 c olive oil, not EVOO (sorry, Rachel)
1/2 tsp coarse salt (like kosher or sea salt)
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp coarsely cracked pepper

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and line a 9 x 13 (or so) rectangular pan with parchment paper.

Scrub your potatoes really well and cut off any eyes or bad bits. Cut into one inch cubes (you know, APPROXimately, don't get out a ruler or anything. Just try to make most of them similar in size) and put in a largish bowl. Pour on the olive oil, then sprinkle with the herbs, salt and pepper.

Sprinkles!!

Give it a good stir with a sturdy heat-resistant spatula.

Spatulas warm my ARC heart

Pour into the prepared pan, scraping leftover oil on top of the potatoes.

Bake for 45 - 60 minutes, stirring with your handy-dandy heat-resistant spatula every 15 minutes. Once you see browning on more than one side, poke one with a knife.

Done!

Closer...

Lovely for brekkie too

You can change up the herbs, maybe make it more of a greek potato with some lemon and oregano, experiment! This is my go-to for breakfast potatoes as well as my guest-y potato, because I can leave the skins on without offending anyone. Because I don't ever peel potatoes. The skin is where all the good stuff is, silly!


And now for the Curried Basmati Rice:

You will need:

1 tsp butter
2 onions, chopped
1/2 bell pepper, say orange
1/2 bell pepper, different colour, like say yellow!
1 c brown basmati rice
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp curry powder (I am using a commercial blend because mine is a leetle spicy and I don't know if that's how these in-laws roll. You can use whichever you like.)

I decided not to grate the onions, so ignore that

I haven't used this recipe in a while, mostly because it calls for white rice and I don't have any. On principal. Okay, I MIGHT have some arborio hidden away, but that's for risotto and that wouldn't help anyway. I have tried just a straight-up switch, increasing the cooking time to account for the brown rice's longer cooking requirement, but nooo beuno. The rice was hard and the peppers were way overcooked.

So we are going to try this: wash the rice and put it in a pan, just barely covering with water.

Just barely.

Bring to a boil, covered, then turn it off and leave alone. Prep your veggies by chopping your onions and peppers.

So pretty

 I always do my initial bell pepper prep under running water, because it is easier to get rid of the seeds. I also made my onions quite a bit smaller than my peppers, but that's only so that my husband thinks that he can see all the healthy stuff and pick around it. Shhhhhhhh

It's like a flag!

Melt the butter in a large sauce pan and cook the onions and peppers for 3-4 minutes, until soft.

Soft is not an insult to veggies, only a description

Check your rice. All the water should be absorbed, pour off any leftover. That can be a pain, use a sieve as necessary. Add the rice to the dish, 1 1/2 c water, the salt and the curry powder. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Don't open it.

Hard rice

Stir potatoes!

After the 20 minutes, check the rice to ensure tenderness.


Serve!

Tenderoni rice! Yay!

Faaarrrrr

Near!!

It turned out they ate both! So it was all to the good.