The farmer’s market this week revealed a special treat: teensy-winsy baby beets, with adorable little beer greens attached on top. These miniaturized beets are perfectly balanced with sweetness coming from the minuscule beet roots, and slight bitterness from the attached greens. With them being so photogenic and colorful, i kept them whole.  In doing so, I avoided my least favorite part of beet dishes – peeling the finished roots and the ensuing mess.  

For these gems, I blanched them in salty water, and then shocked them in salted ice water. Then they can be finished with just about any flavors you like.  We had so many I used them twice.  Once I finished them in olive oil and folded them into fresh pasta.  The second time I made them into a side dish by frying them in rendered bacon fat with green garlic, and finished with the crumbled bacon.  Delicious! 

Tags: beets, farmers market

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Taste Test. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.