Golden Beet and Samphire Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing
Friday was a joyful day for us as we received our Christmas present -a Rocket Garden.
Last year was the first year that we had planted fruits and vegetables. It was an amazing experience and it pushed us into looking at the food that we eat in a completely different way. We have a newfound respect for the produce as we now appreciate how long it takes to grow somethning as humble as a tomato.
We spent most of Saturday planning and planting our fruit and vegetable garden; now all we need to do is water, weed and wait for the fruits of this summer’s crop.
This salad is a true reminder of the kind of vegetables that I could harvest this year. Fresh tender new season spinach, earthy new potatoes and golden beetroot.
We have a special affection for beetroot and love it in all colours, shapes and sizes. I love it as there is so much that you can do with it. It’s brilliant raw, cooked, steamed or pickled, it does not get much better and more versatile than that!
I like samphire, it’s a wonderful sea vegetable and very easy to pair up with heavy and full body flavoured ingredients. It can also work wonders with more subtle ingredients such as non-oily fish or shellfish.
I love this dish as the hot bacon dressing, spinach, samphire and golden beetroot works incredibly well together. The fragrance of the sea, earthiness of the beetroot and the iron packed fresh spinach, it certainly packs a punch.
Another beauty of this dish is that it could be served as a starter or part of a main course.It does not matter how you dress this dish it’s memorable and delightful.
Hot Bacon Dressing
- 2 rashers of smoked back bacon
- 20g grain mustard
- 100g olive oil
- 30g cider vinegar
- 10g honey
- Freshly ground black pepper
Preheat the grill, lay the bacon on to an oven tray and grill the bacon until crispy.
Scrape the crispy bacon and juices from the tray into the thermomix bowl. Blend the crispy bacon on speed 10 for 30 seconds.
Scrape the sides of the bowl down, add the vinegar, mustard, honey and pepper, blend for 30 seconds on speed 10.
Slowly add the oil onto the running blades at speed 8 until all the oil has been incorporated and emulsified.
Adjust the seasoning if needed, keep the dressing warm.
Golden Beet & Samphire Salad
- 4 golden baby beetroots
- 8 new potatoes
- 150g samphire
- 4 large leaves of new season spinach
- 4 baby plum tomatoes
- Olive oil
Preheat the oven to 100°C.
Wash and slice the tomatoes about 2mm thick and lay them onto a tray lined with parchment paper, lightly season the tomatoes with salt and pepper and place the tray in the preheated oven for 3 hours until dry . Once the tomatoes are dry transfer them to a cooling rack to crisp.
Boil the potatoes in salted boiling water until tender, peel the warm potatoes and slice them about 5mm thick.
Remove the leaves from the beetroots and boil the beetroots in salted boiling water till tender. Peel the warm beetroots and cut them in quarters, keep the beetroot warm.
Wash the new seasons spinach leaves, roll each leaf up like a cigar and slice ½ cm slices or rings, keep them in the ring shape and place this in position on the plates.
Wash the samphire and drain well.
Heat a large non-stick frying pan with a tablespoon of olive oil, and sauté the sapphire quickly in the oil. Do not season, as the samphire is salty.
Place the sautéed samphire, warm beetroot wedges and warm potato slices into a large mixing bowl.
Add a table spoon of hot bacon dressing, toss and arrange the salad components with the dried tomatoes on top of the large leaf spinach rings.
Serve 4
Food Fanatics Tips
Samphire can be really salty as they are a sea vegetable and sometimes benefit from soaking in cold water for a couple of minutes before cooking. Early in the season the samphire is delicate and tender and therefore simply sauté the samphire in a hot pan with olive oil. If the samphire stems are thicker and older you will need to blanch them in boiling unsalted water.
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have you tried using the young leaves from the beetroot plant as a colourful and tasty garnish for the salads… photo quality superb.. congrats
Looks really lovely – i think samphire is great. Where did you source it and the beets from -I’m trying to find new places to shop for food so would be interested to know.