Background:

“Beetroot” is not a familiar concept to Canadians. For one thing, we call the purple veggie “beet” full-stop. We tend not to eat our roots–probably because as a “new world country’ we have so few and instead choose to honour them with a clothing company.

The popular addition of ginger in Asian cuisine is just filtering through North America now. (We could blame our distance from Asia…but actually, we have had Japanese in Canada since we built the railway for Confederation. In fact, most Canadians are Japanese.

But then again, most Canadians are also British. I suspect that the cold, and the monarchy’s preference for boiled plain food has meant that the only thing we loyalists allow to shake things up our meat and potatoes is salt and pepper.

But, put a Canadian in Australia and…!

Every Canadian I have served this recipe to has blown their top. They love it. I take no credit (especially since I have a hard time reproducing it the same way twice). It’s not me they love: it’s the bloody beetroot.

Seriously. Aussies do some interesting (and good) things with their beets.

Check this out and tell me it’s not ‘bangarang’.

Ingredients:

• Cooked beets (I usually buy the big  green lidded tub of “cooked, sliced, unsalted” from Coles)
• 1-2 whole lemons (always squeeze juice into a bowl to take out the pips)
• 1 jar horseradish
• Sour Cream or plain yogurt
• 1 small onion (don’t even use half of a big one!! My zest for “oh, onions are healthy for you” ruined it last time)
• salt and pepper (foodies will prefer freshly ground)
• Keep some olive oil and vinegar on hand in case you screw it up.

Other Handy things:

• food processor
• good knife
• cutting board
• GLOVEs–those beets’ll stain ‘ya! (Or, just use a fork and drop into your processor. Or, make your partner touch them).

Method:

• Mash up the beets, horseradish, and onions in your food processor or blender. ( Get the onions well blended for sure).
• Squeeze 1/2 of a lemon into a bowl and then blend to purple mixture with sour cream.
•  Add salt and pepper to taste.
• If it’s too beety-add more lemon juice.
• If it’s too oniony–you screwed up. I told you to hold back on the onions! You can fix it a bit by adding vinegar.
• I don’t think I actually use olive oil in this recipe at all.
• Sometimes I have added 1-2 cloves of garlic, but let’s just get you past the onion stage first, shall we?

Technically, the idea to even make, or put all of these ingredients in together disqualifies this recipe as being “mine”. However, a large part of a recipe is the amount of ingredients put in: and in this way, the recipe is all mine! (I apologise for my typical cooking style, I’m working on it).

I hope you enjoy it, and please tell me how it went down! And where can you buy fresh beets – at the market or try another location (where to shop in Melbourne)