Basic Roasted Beets

Deep Run Roots

This is a great basic recipe that you can eat alone or use for any recipe where you need pre-cooked beets. All you do is put them in the oven whole until they're cooked! (It's much easier to peel and cut a cooked beet than a raw one.) The only flavoring added is subtle and would go with almost any dish.

There's some description of the recipe ingredient amounts here, but really you'll want to adjust the sugar/salt/lemon to suit your tastes (and your beets!): https://www.chowhound.com/post/july-2017-cotm-deep-run-roots-reports-rutabagas-apples-beets-1059204

Captions

[00:04]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:06]: with heather
[00:07]: today we're going to be making a very
[00:09]: simple recipe from
[00:10]: deep brown roots vivian howard's
[00:12]: cookbook we're going to be making
[00:14]: basic roasted beets i have
[00:18]: enough beets here for about a recipe and
[00:20]: a half i didn't have quite enough for a
[00:22]: double recipe
[00:23]: but that's great because we're going to
[00:25]: use these to make something else
[00:27]: tomorrow so um
[00:31]: my amounts are going to be a little bit
[00:32]: different if you're following along in
[00:34]: the book but that's okay
[00:36]: uh so i have washed my beets i've
[00:39]: scrubbed them with like a
[00:40]: vegetable scrubber and i cut off the
[00:43]: little
[00:44]: extra little long tails she doesn't tell
[00:46]: you to cut tops off or anything
[00:49]: and and they're not peeled they're just
[00:52]: washed scrubbed beets and i'm gonna do
[00:55]: is put in
[00:56]: some water not a whole lot
[00:60]: and then we are going to uh
[01:03]: drizzle some olive oil over top
[01:09]: which kind of feels weird because
[01:12]: i don't know what it's going to do with
[01:14]: this whole steaming thing
[01:16]: but we're not going to salt these yet
[01:20]: we're not going to
[01:22]: season them at all right now they're
[01:24]: we're just roasting them
[01:26]: sort of as is and
[01:30]: when they're done we're going to peel
[01:32]: them while they're still warm
[01:35]: and then we are going to flavor them at
[01:38]: that point
[01:39]: while they are still warm because you
[01:41]: can when they're still warm you can put
[01:42]: you can get more flavor into them still
[01:46]: wait till they cool they won't absorb
[01:47]: any of the flavors
[01:50]: i would not suggest that you do this in
[01:52]: a metal pan
[01:53]: because this water is going to turn
[01:55]: purple
[01:56]: and it might stain even those the white
[01:60]: sort of
[02:01]: baking dishes those will be fine it'll
[02:03]: look purple but it should come right off
[02:05]: but
[02:06]: metal in my experience tends to stain a
[02:09]: little bit more easily
[02:10]: anyway so now we're going to cover this
[02:13]: with
[02:15]: aluminum foil and i just have heavy duty
[02:19]: because
[02:20]: sorry that's loud i know my sound got
[02:22]: something like it uh
[02:24]: i'm using heavy duty because it's wider
[02:26]: and it's just easier for me
[02:27]: and it is less likely to poke through
[02:30]: the beads are so cover it as tightly as
[02:34]: you can
[02:35]: because these are going to basically
[02:37]: steam in the oven
[02:38]: which i have preheated to 375 degrees
[02:52]: okay so i'm gonna put this in the oven
[02:54]: and she says it'll take 40 minutes
[02:56]: to an hour and a half um i'm going to
[02:59]: check them at 40 minutes i do have some
[03:01]: that are smaller and some that are huge
[03:04]: as you recall um so i think it'll
[03:06]: probably take a little bit longer than
[03:07]: that but when we take them out what
[03:09]: we're looking for
[03:11]: is for them be able to pierce them with
[03:13]: a knife and for the knife to go in very
[03:14]: easily so i'm going to have my paring
[03:16]: knife and i'll just check those i'll
[03:17]: check them at 40 minutes
[03:19]: but i doubt that they'll be done then
[03:21]: but
[03:22]: we'll be back when they are done and
[03:24]: i'll let you know how long they take
[03:30]: my beats took a really long time in the
[03:32]: oven uh
[03:33]: they were in there for probably at least
[03:35]: an hour and a half uh before the largest
[03:38]: ones were done
[03:39]: uh i just left them all in there and
[03:41]: then we left them
[03:43]: on top of the stove with the foil on top
[03:45]: still for five minutes as per the recipe
[03:49]: and then we let them sit for a little
[03:50]: while without the
[03:52]: um foil on it to kind of cool off a
[03:55]: little bit until i can handle them
[03:57]: so hopefully i can handle them they've
[03:58]: been out of the oven probably at least
[04:00]: 15 minutes at this point but they're
[04:02]: still
[04:02]: pretty warm um your cutting board is
[04:06]: going if you use
[04:08]: red beets anyway your cutting board is
[04:09]: going to get very dirty
[04:11]: or very red and so are your hands um
[04:15]: i generally use some
[04:18]: paper towels to help me peel these
[04:21]: that's what we're doing at this point
[04:22]: we're going to peel these
[04:23]: um kind of cut off
[04:27]: the uh root and the snow the stem end
[04:32]: and then i just use
[04:36]: the paper towels to kind of get
[04:40]: the uh peel
[04:44]: the skin off of the beads sometimes if
[04:48]: it's a little
[04:50]: uh stubborn i might cut off a small
[04:53]: piece
[04:54]: sometimes where there might be a blemish
[04:57]: in the skin it might be a little more
[04:59]: stubborn really hot but you want to peel
[05:01]: these while they are hot
[05:04]: and make sure you get all of the skin
[05:09]: off
[05:11]: there we go um oh and i was going to
[05:14]: show you that like
[05:15]: your i used a paring knife and just made
[05:18]: sure it will go in
[05:19]: uh all the way without too much
[05:23]: resistance and then they're done um so
[05:27]: and really they all kind of took about
[05:28]: the same amount of time the
[05:30]: the small ones weren't done
[05:33]: much before the larger ones but now i'm
[05:36]: gonna slice them into wedges you can
[05:38]: slice them into
[05:40]: basically however you want to eat them
[05:42]: but she suggests quarter inch
[05:44]: thick see my hands are all pink a
[05:46]: quarter inch thick slices
[05:47]: or thin wedges and we are going to use
[05:51]: these
[05:52]: for another recipe which
[05:56]: is the same so i'm going to take these
[05:59]: and slice them up and put them in this
[06:01]: really big bowl
[06:03]: and when i'm done we're going to season
[06:05]: them so
[06:07]: uh i'm just going to keep doing this
[06:11]: and you probably will either see this on
[06:13]: fast forward or not see it at all
[06:15]: because i've got six more
[06:18]: beets to peel
[06:22]: so that took a while but they're still
[06:23]: warm or at least the ones i
[06:25]: can still feel heat here so now i'm
[06:27]: going to add
[06:28]: the seasoning i'm going to add
[06:32]: some salt
[06:43]: now this is um the amount that she
[06:48]: says to start with but then you should
[06:50]: taste them and see if they need
[06:51]: any more of any of these things so that
[06:54]: was salt
[06:55]: this is sugar
[07:12]: and then i have some fresh squeezed
[07:14]: lemon juice i only had like a small
[07:17]: spoon clean besides my whole set
[07:20]: so i'm using a small spoon
[07:37]: all right so that is
[07:40]: the amount that the recipe calls for for
[07:42]: my like one and a half
[07:46]: recipes of it um
[07:50]: i do want to say that some of my beets
[07:52]: did not peel
[07:53]: super easily but i just used my paring
[07:55]: knife and peeled them kind of like i
[07:57]: would peel a potato
[07:60]: the ones that were sort of
[08:05]: had more rough skin didn't peel quite as
[08:08]: easily
[08:10]: even though they were all pretty well
[08:12]: done
[08:13]: pretty tender sliced very nicely
[08:17]: all right
[08:20]: i've got these tossed
[08:23]: and now i um because at this point they
[08:26]: will
[08:27]: take the flavor if you add more of
[08:30]: anything i'm going to taste one of them
[08:39]: good on salt
[08:49]: i think it needs a little more lemon
[08:53]: juice i'm gonna add a little bit more of
[08:55]: that
[08:57]: maybe a tiny bit of sugar
[09:06]: i was just missing the sort of acidic
[09:09]: balance to the really earthy taste of
[09:16]: beets trying to find the ones that were
[09:19]: sort of
[09:20]: not as pretty to taste
[09:30]: definitely a little more sugar
[09:34]: and since my spoon is wet i'm just gonna
[09:38]: use my fingers a little
[09:41]: more on there
[09:45]: and i'm gonna call that good that is our
[09:48]: basic roasted beets so we are going to
[09:52]: serve a few of these as
[09:55]: is um tonight you can serve them
[09:60]: warm or chilled uh up to you
[10:04]: can reheat them if you want or serve
[10:05]: them kind of like right now
[10:08]: um but we are also going to use these
[10:12]: for another recipe and
[10:15]: you'll probably see that next week but i
[10:17]: will let you know
[10:18]: in just a second uh how this turned out
[10:21]: what the family thought um
[10:23]: yeah back in a second
[10:36]: on this episode of cooking the books
[10:37]: with heather you watched me make
[10:39]: basic roasted beets from vivian howard's
[10:41]: deep run roots cookbook
[10:45]: it was a very basic recipe it was but
[10:46]: it's a great
[10:48]: base for other recipes uh as
[10:52]: you will see in our next video we did
[10:55]: use the leftovers we tried that tried
[10:57]: them as
[10:57]: is as is and then use the leftovers in
[11:00]: for another recipe
[11:02]: that's in the same book
[11:06]: as is they're really good but you do
[11:08]: really
[11:09]: have to adjust the sugar
[11:12]: and lemon juice and salt at the end
[11:14]: because
[11:15]: beets could be sweeter or earthier or
[11:20]: you just you never know what you're
[11:21]: going to need so that's really
[11:23]: something that you have to do
[11:26]: on a per recipe basis i think the first
[11:29]: time i made these i have made them
[11:30]: before
[11:32]: it was perfectly fine as is but these
[11:34]: needed a little more
[11:36]: a little more tweaking to taste good to
[11:39]: us
[11:40]: but it's a great basic beat recipe and
[11:43]: it's really easy
[11:44]: um you just sort of stick them in the
[11:46]: oven so
[11:48]: if you enjoyed watching me make this
[11:50]: please give me a thumbs up
[11:52]: uh hit the subscribe button and come
[11:55]: back and watch me make something else