Beet Salad with Goat Cheese

Truthfully, when I started this blog, I understood that I would have to widen my repertoire of cooking/baking to be able to keep writing and blogging about the food that I prepare and eat.  That’s what got me scouring recipes online and trying different stuff.  It is kind of funny to think that with my Asian heritage, you would think that I would cook more of Asian food.  Well, quite frankly, Asian foods are too complicated to me.  You need a little bit of this, a little bit of that, you would end up with 10 ingredients just to make the sauce!  And, you need extra time (for Indonesian cooking) and a special grocery store, i.e., the grocery in Chinatown, which I don’t visit very often.  That’s why I have not delved into Chinese or Indonesian cooking yet.  To me, some of the Western foods are quite simple.  They tend to prepare the food so you can taste the major ingredient, and not to cover it up with spices, like with most of the Asian foods.

Like this Arugula Salad with Beet and Goat Cheese recipe I found at Simply Recipes’ blog.  I modified it a bit, since I don’t think I ever seen the grocery store here that sells Arugula leaves by itself.  Most of the time, it is mixed with the Spring salad mix.  So, I called mine just Beet Salad with Goat Cheese to simplify the title of this post.

Now, most people just turn up their nose when they hear Beet.  I, on the other hand, love beets.  It is sweet, juicy, and just plain refreshing to me.  Most people are turned off by the reddish color of beet.  Naturally, for some reason, people are turned off by food that is actually good for them.  You can read more about the nutrition of beets here and here.

Now, I have never had dealings with fresh beets before.  I usually see them at the grocery store, along side the turnips, but I have never thought of getting one and cooking it myself.  I ate canned beets before this.  So, bear with me with my trial and error in preparing these beets.  (You would think by now that I would do my homework first and research online on how to prepare beets!)

Okay, the ingredients for the salad itself were very simple.  Green salad mix, beets, chopped walnut, and goat cheese. For the vinaigrette, it involved olive oil, lemon, mustard powder, sugar, salt and pepper.

The first thing I did, I lopped off the top of the beets and the root, which was a big No-No. Of course, during my research to write for this post, I found out that I was supposed to keep about an inch of the stem attached to the root, to prevent bleeding.  Bleeding here means that the color of the beet seeps out, which, you will see in the next few pictures.  I ended up having to be extremely careful to not stain the countertop with red globs everywhere.  So, don’t follow my foot steps if you decide to cook some beets. 🙂

Then I rinsed the beets off and dropped them into a pot of water and turned on the heat.

Then within minutes, the water started to turn a reddish color. The boiling process took about an hour to get a tender beet.

By the end of the hour, the beet was tender enough for me to prick it with a fork.

So I drained the water, rinsed off the beets, let them cool and then sliced the beets.  I arranged the beets on top of the greens, sprinkled some chopped walnut and crumbled goat cheese.  Drizzled it with the olive oil and lemon vinaigrette, and it was yummy.  Light, refreshing, and delightful salad! Enjoy!

Print recipe here.

Beet Salad with Goat Cheese
Recipe adapted from Simply Recipes

Ingredients:

Salad Ingredients:
Beets
Green salad mix
Goat cheese – chevre
Walnuts – chopped

Dressing ingredients:
Olive oil
Lemon
Dry powdered mustard
Sugar
Salt and pepper

Preparation:

For beets: Leave an inch of stem intact from the root, boil for an hour until tender. Peel, and slice into desired shapes.

For dressing (for three individual salads): Mix 1/4 cup of olive oil, 1/2 lemon, 1/4 teaspoon of powdered mustard, 3/4 teaspoon of sugar, salt and pepper to taste. Actually, it is all to taste. These are only approximate measurements.

Assemble the salad according to how much you want. A handful of green salad mix, beet slices, chunk, or julienne, some crumbled goat cheese, garnish with chopped walnuts. Drizzle with the vinaigrette.