Beetroot, Walnut & Cannellini Puree

I was reminded recently about Beetroot Hummous (thanks Leila).  I had been meaning to make some for a while.

A lot of recipes seem to mix roughly equal amounts of cooked beetroot and chick peas, with the usaual culprits, garlic, olive oil, tahini & lemon juice.  For maximum flavour use left-over roasted beetroot.  All well and good... but the recipe here is even better!  This recipe is quite different, the flavour comes from lots of toasted cumin & walnuts & garlic.  The slight bitterness of the walnuts with the sweetness of the beetroot makes a great balance.  This is rounded, delicious stuff.


It looks amazing too.  It's insanely colorful as seen in the picture above.

This has to be tried!


RECIPE BELOW:

300g beetroot (our-five medium beets)
60g walnuts
1 tablespoon cumin seeds (lightly toasted)
2/3 tin cannelini beans (or cooked chick peas)
2 teaspoons tahini
1 lemon (for juice & zest)
2 cloves garlic (peeled & mashed in a pestle & mortar)
Olive oil

Start by cooking your beetroot.  I usually roast up my beets wrapped in foil with some olive oil, thyme, balsamic vinegar & black pepper.  This can take an hour though (180C), and in this case there are much quicker options.  You can boil, steam or in this case even microwave.  If you use the microwave you can do the whole recipe in about 15mins. Sometimes microwaves kill the texture of food, but here we're making puree anyway so it works a treat.

Either way, give them a quick scrub, chop the leaves off about 1inch from the bulb, and trim most of the root.  They should be cooked with the skin on to keep the colour and flavour in.  Once cooked you just give them a little squeeze and they shed their jackets like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

Microwave:
Put them in non-metallic bowl with a couple of tablespoons of water, and cover with cling film.  Make a few holes in the cling film & put on full power for 5mins.  When it bings, turn the over in the water, recover, and put back on for another 5-6mins.  Leave to steam for a few more minutes while you get on with the rest.

Boil or Steam:
They will need anywhere from 20-60minutes depending on their size.  To check if they are done, prod them with the tip of a sharp knife.  It should go in fairly easily.

Once they are cooked, and cooled enough to handle, take the skins off and roughly chop.  This is a messy job!


To make the Puree

Lighltly toast your walnuts in a hot dry frying pan for 5mins, or roast in the oven for 5mins. Be careful not to burn them!  Put them in a food processor and let them cool.

Briefly do the same to the cumin.  It will only need 1 minute, and will smell incredible.  As soon as they start turning brown, or popping, remove from the heat and grind in a pestle and mortar.  Then add to the walnuts.

Next, blitz the walnuts to a crumbly texture, then add the cannellini beans. Start blending it up while drizzling in olive oil.  It should start to make a nice paste without being runny.  Next, blitz in the beetroot until it's evenly mixed.  Try not to overblend it so you keep a little texture.  At this point add the tahini, the juice & zest of the lemon, the mashed garlic & lots of black pepper and give one final quick blitz.  Add some salt if needed & eat!

This will last in the fridge for a couple of days, and is nicest if brought back up to room temperature before eating.  Enjoy!

This is based (very heavily...) on a great recipe that I came across on a blog called thegrubworm.com (RECIPE HERE)   The only real difference is that I've brought the garlic right down from 5 cloves to 2.  Even with this amount of raw garlic, the taste is strong enough.  It's a great recipe though, so thanks grubworm people!  Much appreciated.