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Beetroot salad with prunes: simplicity in the details. Video recipe
With a sweet, slightly earthy flavor, beets are a great base for salads. In the West, it is often paired with crispy nuts and salted cheese. The Russian culinary classic is beet salad with prunes.
Beetroot salad with prunes
Before cooking beets, cut the roots and stalks of the root vegetable, rinse it with cool water. Use kitchen gloves to handle beets, or be careful as beet juice stains the skin and is difficult to clean. If you don’t want to tweak it, cook the beets in the skins for the most concentrated flavor. Finished beets can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
To boil the beets, place them in a large deep saucepan, cover them with cold water, add about 1 teaspoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt for every half liter of water. Add 1/4 cup white vinegar for every 8 cups of water to brighten the root vegetable color. Bring water to a boil, reduce heat to medium, and cook for 45 minutes to 4 hours. Cooking time depends on the size of the tubers, how long they have been stored. When the beets are easy to pierce with a narrow, long-bladed knife, remove the pan from the heat, drain the water and pour a new, cold one into the pan. Drain it too and peel the beets. The peel will easily peel off without a knife by simply rubbing it with a damp cloth.
You can also bake beets, for this you need to wash the root vegetable, peel and cut into quarters. Put on a sheet of foil and drizzle with 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, season with salt and pepper, wrap and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes. You can also roast whole unpeeled beets, but may take longer to cook.
You can soak tough and old beets in cold water for 10-12 hours without peeling. Then the root vegetable will be ready faster.
Usually, dry prunes are added to prune dishes such as veal rolls, dried fruit compote or chicken with prunes and apples. When heat treated, it softens. For a salad of beets and prunes, the dried fruit should be soaked beforehand. You can do this by simply pouring boiling water over dried plums at the rate of 1 cup for every 250 g, but you can add a spicy touch to the salad. To do this, take:
– 250 g of prunes; – 1 glass of boiling water; – 1 glass of orange juice; – a pinch of nutmeg; – a pinch of ground cinnamon.
Place the prunes in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave for an hour, then drain the water, transfer the dried fruit to a small saucepan and pour in orange juice (can be replaced with dry white wine), season with cinnamon and nutmeg, bring to a boil and cook for about 20-25 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon, dry and use in salad.
Classic Beet and Prune Salad Recipe
For the classic version of the salad, take:
– 2 medium boiled or baked beets; – 100 g of prunes; – 2 cloves of garlic; – 3 tablespoons of thick mayonnaise; – 70 g of shelled walnuts: – salt.
Peel the beets and grate them. It is better to use a food processor with a special attachment, as beetroot pieces can stain not only your hands, but also the kitchen. Cut the prunes, previously soaked in boiling water, into small cubes. Put the walnuts in a tight plastic bag and go over it several times with a rolling pin. Put the crushed nuts in a bowl along with the grated beets and chopped prunes, add the garlic passed through a press, salt and season the salad with mayonnaise. Stir and refrigerate for 1-2 hours. Serve garnished with fresh parsley.
Before adding walnuts to your salad, taste them. If they are rancid, replace with new ones or do not use them at all, as such nuts can spoil the taste of the whole dish.
Variations of the classic salad with prunes
While there aren’t many ingredients in the beetroot salad with prunes, it does have a lot of variations. You can substitute sour cream for half of the mayonnaise, but do not use a low fat product, as it is too liquid. If you want to make your salad less nutritious, cook it without nuts and with a vegetable oil and vinegar dressing. For 2 tablespoons of oil (vegetable, olive, walnuts, grape seed), take ½ teaspoon of vinegar. For the best flavor, go for apple or balsamic. You can substitute the same amount of freshly squeezed lemon juice for the vinegar.
If you don’t like garlic, you can simply skip adding it or substitute finely chopped onions, about ½ a head or 1 head of a shallot. Replace walnuts with pine nuts, unsalted crushed pistachios, chopped almonds, or macadamia nuts. Prunes can be soaked or boiled, as described above, in juice or white wine. You can also replace it with fine golden soft raisins. When choosing beets, remember that in addition to purple and red varieties, there are pink and yellow beets.