How to Prepare Beets?
Red beets, or simply beets, are a vegetable that is often prepared in the Dutch kitchen. Red beets have an earthy taste and when we prepare red beets, the taste becomes wonderfully sweet. But there are even more ways to prepare beetroot.
How to Prepare Beets?
- Fresh summer red beets have to cook for 30 minutes
- Fresh winter red beets need to cook for 90 minutes
- Red beets from the oven ready in 60 minutes
- Grandma’s beetroot recipe ready in 45 minutes
- Fresh raw beets in salad or Carpaccio, 20 minutes preparation time.
The beetroot is a delicious vegetable that can be prepared deliciously. It’s all explained in this blog.
We have also written a blog on how to keep fresh beetroots long and well. How to Store Beets? tells you all about saving.
When you think of red beets, the thought of grandma often comes to mind, red beets according to grandmother’s recipe. So we start with this.
Beetroot Grandma’s Recipe
When you talk about beetroot, grandmother’s recipe always comes up; Prepare red beets in the old Dutch way together with mashed potatoes.
For many, this way is also the tastiest way to eat beetroot. What are beetroots according to grandmother’s recipe?
What are the ingredients for 4 people?
- About 1 kilo of fresh red beets or 750 grams of cooked beets
- 2-3 bay leaves
- 1 large apple
- 1 large onion
- Pinch of clove powder
- 1 tablespoon sunflower oil
- 1-2 tablespoons vinegar
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- Pepper and salt
The first thing to do now is to clean and cook the fresh beets.
How to clean beets?
Fresh beets come from the land and grow underground. When we want to prepare or cook beets, we must first clean beets. Cut off any remaining green leaves and the stem of the beetroot.
During your work in the kitchen, good and sharp knives are essential. This makes work fun and easy.
Then wash the beets thoroughly under the tap. Make sure all the sand and clay is gone. Now they can be cooked.
How to Cook Beets?
When we cook fresh beets we need to know what kind of beets we have. Are they summer beets or winter beets? (Winter beets are larger than summer beets).
Everything about cooking beetroot is described in our blog ‘ How to cook beetroot? ‘.
The cooking of the beets is the same, only the cooking time differs. Summer beets are ready in 25-30 minutes and winter beets take 1.5 to 2 hours to cook.
Place a pan with plenty of water on the heat source and bring the water to a boil. When the water boils, the bay leaves and beets go into the boiling water. We now cook the beets in the correct time.
To check whether the beets are cooked, you can pierce them with a fork. If the fork goes in easily, the beets are done.
Now drain the beets in a colander. Now fill the pan with cold water and put the beets back in the pan and let them cool.
When they have cooled down, we can peel the beets, we remove the outer skin from the beets. Now they are ready for further cooking.
Prepare beetroot?
Now we can start making beetroot according to grandmother’s recipe. You can use your own cooked beets or the ready-made cooked beets from the supermarket.
Peel the onion and grate the onion into a pan. Do the same with the apple, peel it and grate the apple into the pan. Do the same with the beets. Be careful with splashes, because it’s hard to get these out of your clothes!
If you don’t have a grater, cut the apple and onion into small cubes and the beetroot into strips.
Now place a pan on the heat source and set the heat source to a medium-high setting. Add the grated onion, apple, and beets to the pan. Then add the sunflower oil, clove powder, and salt, and pepper and cook gently while warm. Stir the pan occasionally and make sure it doesn’t stick.
When it is warm, taste whether the taste is to your liking, you can still add spices.
Serve the beetroot according to grandmother’s recipe with, for example, mashed potatoes. Enjoy your meal.
Red Beets from the Oven
Fresh red beets are used for cooking in the oven.
What we need for 4 people are 4 large beets, sprigs of thyme, salt and pepper, and agave syrup or other sweeteners. In addition, aluminum foil and a baking tray are needed.
Wash and brush the beets well under running water. Then cut off the top and bottom of the beets. Then cut the top of each beet a few times with your knife.
Now take 4 sheets of aluminum foil. They should be big enough to go all the way around the beets.
Place each beetroot on a sheet of aluminum foil and zip the thyme sprigs clean and sprinkle the beets with thyme. Then with a pinch of salt and agave syrup; Agave syrup is at your discretion and taste.
Now put the aluminum foil over the beets and seal the packages.
Place the beets on the baking sheet and place in the oven preheated to 225 degrees. After an hour, the beets are done and can be removed from the oven.
Serve the parcels on a plate, along with mashed potatoes.
As soon as you open the package, the smells come loose and you can enjoy eating. The flesh is nice and soft and comes off the skin. Enjoy your meal.
Beetroot Raw Food
Red beets, cooked are also delicious to eat in, for example, a salad such as carpaccio and beetroot juice.
Beetroot Carpaccio
Carpaccio is very thin slices of beetroot. Often cooked, but also uncooked beets are used for this. This is a dish that is often made for vegetarians as an appetizer at a Christmas dinner, for example.
Red Beet Salad
For a salad, the beetroot must first be thoroughly cleaned under the tap. Then peel the beetroot and cut into thin slices or grate. Now it can be added to the salad.
It has already been described above that you can use uncooked beetroot for a salad. This can also be done with grated cooked red beets. Delicious with orange slices and a little lemon juice.
Red Beet Juice
Raw beets are used for this, so you also need a juicer for this. Beetroot juice is often made with carrots or with apple and cinnamon.
