Beetroot and walnut dip
Units
Temperature
Servings
Ingredients
Dip
- 500 g beetroot, similar sizes, so they finish together rounded
- 100 g walnuts, toasted and cooled, keeping a few back for the top rounded
- 150 g Greek yogurt rounded
- 30 ml olive oil rounded
- 20 ml red wine vinegar, beetroot is sweet and needs the acid rounded
- 2 garlic cloves rounded
- 6 g fine salt rounded
- 4 g ground coriander rounded
- to taste dill, sumac or crumbled feta rounded
Method
Method
- Wrap the beetroot in foil, whole and unpeeled, and roast at 200°C for about an hour, until a knife goes in easily.
- Rub the skins off under cold water while they are still warm. They slip away with almost no effort.
- Toast the walnuts and cool them completely.
- Blend everything to a coarse purée, keeping a little texture from the nuts.
- Rest an hour, taste again for salt and vinegar, and finish with oil, walnuts and something white on top.
Notes
- Roast, do not boil. Boiling pulls the colour and sugar out into the water. Roasting drives moisture off and concentrates both, and the difference in the finished dip is enormous.
- It needs more acid than you expect. Beetroot is one of the sweetest vegetables there is, and without the vinegar the dip is cloying.
- Walnuts do two jobs. They thicken it and their slight bitterness balances the sugar, which is the same trick the Georgians use in pkhali.
- The colour stains everything, including hands, boards and tea towels. Do the peeling under running water.
- It keeps 5 days and the colour deepens rather than fading.
Ingredient substitutions
- Vacuum-packed cooked beetroot saves the hour and is a reasonable compromise, though it is usually boiled and slightly vinegared already, so hold back some of the vinegar and taste first.
- For a vegan version, tahini in place of the yogurt at about half the weight works well and pushes it towards the Levantine end of the family.