I was a latecomer to beets. They just always seemed too sweet and the texture was too slippery. I wanted to like them, not least of all because they look so pretty on a plate. Some years ago, I bravely decided to give this salad a try, from one of my favorite cookbooks, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. (In full disclosure, I have proselytized about this book and, among devotées is my mother, who will often say during kitchen preparations, “What does Deborah say?”).
This salad was the game changer for me. It is beautifully balanced between the sweetness of the beets, the saltiness of the cheese and olives, the bite of the arugula, and the tang of the lemony dressing.
The most labor-intensive part is roasting the beets (or you could steam them or do them on a grill), which is very little hands-on time, so it comes together pretty quickly. She does call for mashing the garlic into a paste with some salt, which I initially put down to some fussy foody thing, but it really does mellow out the raw garlic and takes about 90 seconds (really; I timed it). I use a mortar and pestle but it is just as easily accomplished by mashing a clove of garlic with the salt on a cutting board with the side of a kitchen knife.
The arugula is just now ready to bring in from the garden so I use that but you could substitute cress or some other peppery green (even nasturtium leaves and flowers if you have access). If you can’t find ricotta salata ( a crumbly dry cheese) you could use feta in its place; feta is a bit creamier but would work just fine.
You can find the full recipe here.
If your beets come with the greens, be sure to find a use for them. Even when I didn’t like the root, I still ate the leafy tops and stems. In my garden, I plant beets and harvest just the greens all summer and only dig up the beet root in the fall. I like a savory breakfast so I’ll use beet and other greens, steamed up, as a topping for an egg for some extra nutrition and fiber, but you can use beet greens as you would Swiss Chard, kale, or any other green, and toss the small, tender leaves in salads.