Genghis Cooks: Beetroot and Blackberries

->Thanks go to my Mum who first assembled beets and berries into a salad, this recipe is only a slight development of her initial idea.<-

Warm Beetroot and Blackberry Salad

This sweet, earthy, crunchy salad - with its bright little gems of blackberry freshness – goes beautifully with something rich and savoury. I have served it alongside grilled Halloumi dressed very plainly with black pepper and lemon juice – although it would go equally well with feta or some other crumbly, salty white cheese – and it was delicious with a firm, rustic pork liver paté. Other combinations could be a pork pie, smoked salmon, or thick-cut ham for an unusual and gratifying summer lunch.

Also, I'm sure beetroot are terribly good for you. I'm basing this on very little scientific information, but they certainly look like a superfood, don't they? And anything which has such a startling effect on your motions must be doing something good, I'm sure of it.

1 bunch fresh beetroot

A good lug of oil

A handful of fresh thyme

½ tsp cayenne pepper

½ tsp sweet smoked paprika

A handful of ripe blackberries (not too many – this is a salad, not a dessert)

A small bunch of radishes (maybe 10ish)

A handful of flat leaf parsley

Seeds (whatever you fancy: sunflower, pumpkin, linseed, sesame, poppy [optional])

Half a lemon

More oil for dressing

Wash the beetroot and cut off their tails and their topknots – you don't really need to peel a beetroot, but larger roots tend to go a bit scaly around their tops, so I usually just peel their very tough bits off, and giggle at the bright pink water going down the sink when I wash them – then chop them into appropriately-sized wedges or chunks. Little baby beetroot can go in whole, tops and tails and all. Throw the beetroot into a roasting tin and scrunch the thyme over them to scatter the leaves, then throw the rest of the thyme in too. Sprinkle the cayenne and the paprika over the roots, and then give them a good lug of oil – I use rapeseed, but I can see no reason why you shouldn't use olive oil or any other vegetable oil. Season with salt and pepper, toss them about in the oil and spice so that they're all well greased and stick them in a hot oven for 45 minutes to one hour.

This leaves you with a convenient bit of down-time in which to go out and forage for blackberries. Of course you can buy them, but brambles grow almost everywhere so why not try and find some- for free? Also, using the most ludicrously fresh ingredients possible does give a distinct sense of satisfaction.

When the beetroot are tender (the point of a knife slides in and out again easily) and are as crusty and roasty as you like (read: as crusty and roasty as you can be bothered to make them), stick the roasting tin outside for a few minutes to let them cool slightly. Chop the radishes in thick slices or random chunks (large enough that they keep their crunch, and retain a bit of presence in a robust and full-flavoured salad), and tear or coarsely chop the parsley.

To compose the salad, just throw the whole lot into a bowl – dark purple beetroot, shiny black berries, pink-and-white radishes and bright green parsley – and take a moment to enjoy all the colours, because once you toss the salad everything will turn beetroot-coloured. Add a couple of tablespoons of mixed seeds now if you wish for a little extra crunch and nutty flavour. Walnuts would be good too.

For dressing, simply squeeze the lemon and give the salad a little more oil, salt and pepper, but bear in mind that the beetroot are already seasoned and may be rather oily, so you might not need much. Toss the salad briefly and gently so as not to smush the blackberries into nothingness – they should remain soft, squishy pellets of tart, fresh sweetness to contrast against the rich, earthy sweetness of the beetroot and paprika.

NB. Do not atttempt this recipe while wearing your best shirt, and do not serve it on your best table linen; beetroot juice is merciless. I recommend preparing it in the nude and eating it on the lawn, possibly still in the nude.

Genghis Kong Writes: the Bath Chap

Now, to get thiss wee food blog started I thought I might reprint here an article I wrote several years ago. My thanks to Article Magazine, Sheffield who published this initially in May 2008. Read the rest of the magazine and see this article in situ at http://www.impursuit.com/article/article1.pdf

-->The Bath Chap

Suffering from the same unfortunate
stigma as tongue, trotters, kidneys and
the like, the Bath Chap is a delicacy to
which the unadventurous masses will
usually turn up their noses in disgust and
ask you to pass the turkey twizzlers. It
is an attitude which I cannot understand:
avoid anything which is recognisable as
a part of an animal and opt, instead, for
unidentifiable, homogenised meaty matter
reformed into uniform drummers, nuggets
or whatever the shape-du-jour happens
to be. I am happier eating something
which I know to be a single part of a
single animal,that I know precisely which
piece of the animal it is and that I can see
plainly has not been too interfered with
on its journey from the farm to my plate,
rather than the lips-and-arseholes mush
scraped from the abattoir floor at the end
of the day and extruded into the shape of
a dinosaur.

But enough of my food-snobbery and
gastro-vitriol; on to the Chap itself.

This glorious, soft, rich, hammy
creation is, in simple terms, most of
a pig’s face wrapped around its own
tongue. The pig’s head is cleft in two
and the resulting halves follow a process
similar to the curing of ham – a day or
so in brine, a week to dry-cure and a
light smoking. These are then boiled for
several hours until the meat is tender and
falls easily away from the skull and the
skin can be removed from the flesh. The
meat then is rolled, pressed and chilled,
with the final product resembling a pale
cone with one side flattened; 8 inches
long and 4 inches across the widest part.
They were traditionally served with the
snout still attached, although concessions
to squeamishness mean that this is usually
no longer the case.

It is usually eaten as a lunch meat:
served cold, thickly sliced, with mustard
and pickles. Dark pink tongue surrounded
by alternate rings of pale pink meat
and quivering white fat, it is a rich dish
and demands a good portion of buttery
mashed potatoes to soak it up and proper,
hot yellow mustard to cut through the
fattiness.

A well dressed salad on the side
and a glass of not-too-cold brown beer
completes this summer luncheon.

If you prefer your fare a little less
rustic and a little more ‘gastro’, fry thick
slices until they crisp up and serve with
irony greens and a piquant salsa verde.
Pick a bottle of red with plenty of body
– this is not a subtle dish.

Alternatively, slice thinly and use as
a superior version of ham (cold) or bacon
(fried) in sandwiches, salads, breakfasts
and suchlike.

Sadly though, despite the many
glories of this much-forgotten cold-cut,
it is extremely difficult to find outside of
Bath and Somerset. Nonetheless, should
you ever find yourself day-tripping that
fair city, head to the butcher-deli counter
of the Guildhall Covered Market and try a
Chap for yourself.<--

Written some three years ago, but it all holds true and it still makes me salivate to think of a good chap and some hot English mustard. I sincerely hope everyone who readds this will do their best to try and track down a chap at some point in their lives. It will be well worth it!

Much Love
GK x