Beetroot

This week's ingredient is...BEETROOT! Ok, so I may have lost half the audience with the first sentence, but stick with me. Beetroot to many Australians is the iconic ingredient in the local takeaway classic - burger with the lot. A slice of bland, over-sweetened beetroot slapped between a Tip Top bun along with an overcooked dry meat pattie, some wilted ice burg lettuce, a slice of plastic cheese, slimey tasteless tomato and a slightly blackened, horrendously well-done egg whose smell reminds you of that childhood trip to Rototura all those years ago. Along with the burger with the lot, tinned beetroot somehow found its way onto our sandwiches where it turned your white bread pink around the edges making it impossible to swap, but an incredibly dangerous playground weapon.

After tasting fresh beetroot I wondered why we were forced to endure the tinned version of what is such a wonderfully flavoured and versatile vegetable. An ancestor of the sea beet, which is found throughout the Mediterranean, Europe and India. The beetroot has been cultivated for thousands of years, back into the second millennium BC. The plant was first domesticated along the Mediterranean before it spread to Babylonia by the 8th century BC and east to China by 850 AD. Used in cuisine both for the leafy chard, which is similar to spinach, and the rich dark red root. Beetroot appears in dishes crossing Europe, Africa, America and of course in the world renowned Australian burger with the lot.

This week I am going to hopefully shut out the beetroot crimes of the past and inspire some to stain their fingers, and possibly half their kitchen, pink in the pursuit of beetroot bliss.