Pickled Beetroot

Beetroot is always underestimated in my opinion as it is great to have cold in a salad and also as a hot vegetable with most meals.

Having obtained your beetroot, making sure that it does not have damaged skin because it will “bleed” during the cooking; you need to take off any excessive top foliage. Wash it carefully and then place it in a saucepan with a little salt and cover it with water.

Bring this to the boil, turn it down to simmer, until the beetroot is tender after about two hours.

Allow it to cool enough to handle, peel off the skin and then cut it into either small cubes or slices: I prefer the latter.

Pack it into jars and cover with the cold pickling vinegar.

This is one pickled item that you can eat almost straight away, but I usually have some on the go so I store it for a little while: in the fridge being the best place.

Quantities:
Use 3lb (450gm) of beetroot to roughly 1pint (575-600ml) of pickling vinegar.

Where to buy
Foodland and Tops at Central very often have it, and some market stalls as well. My local market has a stall with it that comes down from the King’s Project in Chang Mai where they grow a lot of the more unusual produce that are notnormally native to Thailand.

To digress for a moment, this is an enterprise that is well worth supporting; as under His Majesty’s auspices they are encouraged to become self supporting. Some of the other items they produce are an excellent peachwood smoked trout and another is trout marinated in dill (gravalux style). Buffalo feta cheese and sundried tomatoes are also available and I have just discovered crackers with shitake mushroom flavour….heaven!!!

Enjoy your pickling and enjoy the eating.