A bit of a pickle...

As you know you never quite can tell what's coming next in my blog, anything can pop up and frequently does, but it 's ages since I’ve ‘done’ a recipe, so when I checked my beetroot and found that it was ready - well it was too good an opportunity to miss.

Now I'm not usually big on beetroot but seeing as I recently grew some in a large pot at the cottage and ‘pulled’ it last weekend, I thought that I may as well do something edible with it rather than putting it in a bag and waiting for it to rot. What should I do - Borsch, boiled buttered mash, chutney?

It was surprisingly easy to grow from the 30p packet of seeds I bought from Lidl. I got about ten good sized beets that I decided to pickle ready for Christmas. I’ve never pickled anything before but fortunately I have a book - I almost followed the book but I can’t resist experimentation so…

Spicy Pickled Beetroot .

This is what you need –

Beetroot – as much as you can grow! If you can get 2lbs like I did here’s the volumes of the other stuff you’ll need.
1 litre vinegar - either malt vinegar or wine vinegar (I used ½ wine vinegar- it was in the cupboard- and ½ home-made cider, well why not?)
½ tablespoon whole coriander seeds
½ tablespoon whole peppercorns
5 cloves
A bay leaf
A chopped red chilli (leave this out if you want, it wasn’t in the recipe, so who knows, but I had some in the garden.)

This is what you do-

Chop the stalks off the beetroot, leaving an inch at the end. Don’t chop off the long root, leave it on, it looks a bit gross but otherwise the beetroot will bleed.

Scrub the beetroot gently to remove any mud, but take care not to damage the skin or all the red juice will run into the water and your beetroot won’t have any flavour.

Boil them in a big pan for an hour or so until they are soft enough for a cocktail stick to go through them - enjoy the spearing, I did, it bleeds.

While the beetroot is boiling, make the vinegar mixture.

Put the vinegar/cider, coriander, cloves, peppercorns and bay leaf in a large pan
Bring to the boil for about 1 minute.

Turn off the heat and cover the pan.

Leave the flavours to infuse (I always want to say enthuse I love the idea of enthusiastic food) for about 2 hours.

Strain out all the bits but keep the liquid.

Put on some rubber gloves and peel the beetroot (better to leave no prints), the skin should just fall away. If you don’t use gloves it'll take ages for your finger nails to return to their usual colour!

Slice the beetroot into round 1/2 cm slices.

Put the slices into sterilised jars. I used some nice Kilner jars I bought from Wilcos for £2.25 each (I bought 2).

Bring the vinegar mixture back to the boil and then fill the jars and leave to cool.

Leave for at least a few weeks before eating. It says to gently shake the jars every week or so, to allow the flavours to infuse (enthuse), but I’m sure that you can eat it whenever you fancy.

As I said I’m leaving mine until Christmas to have with some nice boiled ham and fried potatoes.

I can hardly wait (in fact I couldn't and ate some tonight - it was fantastic - flavoursome and spicy).