Beetroot is a product that really brings great benefits to the body, in particular in terms of diet. However, there are not so many lovers of this root crop. Why is this happening? Maybe because the imagination of some home-cooks is limited only to such classic dishes as beetroot salad with garlic and herring under a fur coat? Let's fix the situation together.
First, a few words should be given to the preparation of the main ingredient of salads - beets. It can be present in a dish in both boiled and baked form. The last option of heat treatment, as practice shows, improves the taste of the finished product.
So, we need root crops of the same (medium or small) size, since beets are cooked for a long time. From a practical point of view, our goal is that all root crops are ready at the same time. Rinse the beets well under running water, scrape with a brush to remove soil and other dirt. When cooking, do not remove the peel from root crops, do not cut the petioles - this will save more vitamins. Put a pot of water on the fire and bring to a boil. Put the beets in boiling water and cover. No salt needed. Root crops of about 60 minutes are boiled, not more. It’s not worth digesting - otherwise the taste of beets will leave much to be desired.
Useful advice: so that the beets during cooking retained its saturated color, and did not turn into something brownish-purple, add sugar to the water at the rate of half a teaspoon per two liters of water. Now your beetroot salad with garlic is guaranteed to look spectacular.
Beetroot should also be baked in a peel. Put the root vegetables on a baking sheet and put in the oven heated to 160-180 degrees for an hour and a half. To prevent the ingredient for your salad from drying out in the oven, wrap each beetroot in baking foil. And if you have thick-walled dishes, boldly bake right in it, covering it with a lid.
And after cooking, and after baking, let the beets cool completely and only then proceed to peeling.
And now - the most important part of the article from the practical point of view, namely salad recipes.
Beetroot salad with garlic: how to diversify the classics
Cut 500 g of baked or boiled beets into thin strips. If laziness - you can rub on a coarse grater, but straws will actually be much tastier. Garlic (1-2 or even 3 prongs - depends on your personal preferences), pass through a press or grate on a fine grater. Mix the ingredients in a salad bowl and season with two to three tablespoons of mayonnaise. Salt, pepper to taste. For those who are not a lover of mayonnaise, you can recommend the same amount of sour cream or 50 ml of any vegetable oil (olive, sunflower, corn) as a dressing.
And now variations on the theme. Instead of prunes, you can add a couple of small pickled cucumbers (gherkins), chopped into thin strips, in a salad with beets and garlic. Organic in this dish and the presence of a handful of crushed walnuts or whole pine nuts. A bolder gastronomic solution would be to add half a sour apple (again cut into strips) or even fresh redcurrant berries to beets and garlic.
And by adding prunes to beetroot salad with garlic, the dish will be doubly useful, especially if you constantly worry about your figure. To do this, rinse 200 g of prunes, pour boiling water so that the water barely covers the dried fruits, and add a tablespoon of granulated sugar here. When the prunes become soft, take out the bones and cut into strips.
Your beet and garlic salad will be indescribably delicious if feta or Adyghe cheese becomes an additional ingredient to it . Crush 150 g of this dairy product in an art mess on top of a slide of already dressed salad.
By the way, at the beginning of the article, we forgot to mention that beet salad with garlic will be more healthy and no less tasty if you use raw root vegetables for it. However, only young beets are ideal for this purpose. Only in this case, the beets should be rubbed on a fine grater and sprinkled with lemon juice.