This is a terrific dinner and shows off just how beetroot stalks and leaves are delicious and useful in their own right, too. This recipe would certainly be nice enough without the beetroot stalks cooked into the base of the dish, or indeed the beetroot leaves added for the finish – but not nearly so good as with them.
Serve with plenty of couscous stirred through with lots of chopped herbs, salt and a squeeze of lemon juice.
Baked za’atar meatballs with tomato sauce and beetroot tips
Serves 4 as a main
For the sauce
- 2 red onions
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 4 garlic cloves
- stalks and leaves from 6 beetroot
- 5 anchovy fillets, drained of oil
- 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
- 2 tbsp grated fresh horseradish
- 2 tbsp crème fraîche
- salt and black pepper
For the meatballs
- 1 red onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 400g minced beef or lamb
- 1 tbsp za’atar
- 80g breadcrumbs
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- salt and black pepper
Make the sauce first: peel and chop the onions. Heat the olive oil in a large deep frying pan and cook the onions over a gentle heat until starting to tenderise and taking on a little colour. Add the peeled and finely chopped garlic cloves.
While they are cooking, separate the beetroot leaves from the stalks. Sit the leaves in very cold water to keep them perky. Finely chop the stalks and add to the frying pan. Let them cook down for 5 minutes, stirring, then add the anchovies and chopped tomatoes. Rinse out the tomato tin with water and add that to the pan. Season. Simmer for 20 minutes. Set aside while you make the meatballs.
For the meatballs: preheat the oven to 210°C fan.
Peel and grate the onion and garlic into a bowl, add the minced meat, za’atar and breadcrumbs and season well. Beat the egg and add then use your hands to bring the mixture together.
Divide into 20 equal pieces, rolling them into balls as you go. Sit the meatballs on a baking tray, drizzle over the oil and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
For the last 5 minutes of the meatballs’ baking time, put the sauce back on the heat and stir in the horseradish. Lift the beetroot leaves out of the water and sit on kitchen paper to dry, then just before the meatballs are ready, stir the crème fraîche and beetroot leaves through the sauce. Remove the meatballs from the oven and sit them on top of the sauce. Pour over any oil left behind in the baking tray, grind over plenty of black pepper and serve straight away.
Celery and hazelnut gratin
This dish is all about celebrating the luscious simplicity of celery. Like celery itself, it is somehow rustic yet elegant at the same time. It makes an excellent side dish for meat or fish but can be just as good as the main event of a meal. You’d just need some peppery leaves alongside, and maybe chunks of bread to mop up the baking juices.
Serves 6-8 as a side; 4-6 as a main
- 1 whole head of celery, 650–700g
- 2 bay leaves
- 300ml double (heavy) cream
- 250ml chicken or vegetable stock
- 75g shelled hazelnuts
- 75g breadcrumbs
- 30g Parmesan
- salt and black pepper
Preheat the oven to 180°C fan.
Pull all the celery stalks away from the base, trimming away only the very toughest ends. Wash thoroughly. Pull off and keep all the leaves. Cut all the stalks into roughly 5cm lengths – if they seem stringy, just pull the strings off. Tumble the celery pieces and the celery leaves into a gratin or baking dish, tuck in the bay leaves and season well with salt and pepper.
Mix the double cream with the stock and pour over the celery. Cover with foil and bake for 1-1 ½ hours until the celery is properly tender.
Make the gratin topping as the celery bakes. Roughly crush or grind the hazelnuts, then mix with the breadcrumbs in a bowl. Grate in the Parmesan and mix again, adding salt and pepper.
When the celery is ready, turn on the grill. Scatter the gratin topping over the dish and put under the grill for 5-10 minutes until browned.
Serve while hot, but a few minutes away from the heat for the celery juices to calm down and thicken is no bad thing.
Autumn Salad: beetroot, fig, blackberry, radicchio and hazelnut
This tastes of autumn and looks like autumn on a plate. The burnished plum colours come together with depth from the beetroot, brightness from the quick-pickled blackberries, sweet musky figs and a bed of bitter radicchio leaves. With a tahini dressing and the crunch of a few seasonal nuts for the final flourish.
It’s a good one to make ahead, just finish with the dressing when time to serve. Keep the pickling liquor from the blackberries to use in salad dressings.
Serves 4 as a small main
- 400g raw beetroot
- 150g blackberries
- 75ml red wine vinegar
- 1 tsp coriander seeds
- 1 tbsp caster sugar
- 300g radicchio
- 3 ripe figs
- 100g white tahini
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 40g shelled hazelnuts
- sea salt flakes
Steam or roast the beetroot until tender. Leave to cool, peel and set aside.
Quick-pickle the blackberries at least 1 hour before you want to eat: put the blackberries into a bowl. In a small pan, heat the vinegar, coriander seeds, sugar and 75ml water just until the sugar dissolves. Pour all that over the blackberries and set aside for 45 minutes, mixing them occasionally.
To build the salad: choose either one large platter or individual plates. Separate the radicchio leaves and arrange as a base, roughly tearing any larger leaves. Cut the beetroot into wedges and arrange over. Cut the figs into wedges and add those, too. Lift the blackberries out of their pickling liquor and arrange over. Scatter over some salt flakes.
Make the dressing: Mix the tahini with 75ml water and the lemon juice. Give it some salt. Mix well. Roughly chop the hazelnuts and scatter over. Serve with the tahini dressing on the side.
An edited extract from Seasoning by Angela Clutton (Murdoch Books RRP $59.99).
