Cherry-Ginger Roasted Beets with Fresh Ricotta, Aged Balsamic, Thyme

Until recently, my only experiences with beets up until now were of the salad bar variety and the Doug variety. I saw these Italian heirloom beets at the farmers’ market though and decided to give them a shot. Beets are pretty sweet, but you have to coax it out of them by roasting them a bit – it concentrates the sugars. It also helps to cook them in something that has some sweetness to it to help it along.

Ricotta is one of my favorite cheeses. It’s healthy, inexpensive, and quite tasty. Yes, cheese can be healthy! Ricotta is made from whey, which is a byproduct from the production of other cheeses, which means it’s generally pretty cheap. It also means it’s almost all protein – whey, after all, is the stuff most commonly used in protein powders. I use the hard version, ricotta salata, as my go-to cheese to shred and add to anything. It doesn’t melt very well since it doesn’t have much oil in it, but the health benefits are worth it for me. I use the soft version of ricotta in dishes like these – you might have used it in a lasagna or stuffed shells recipe before. It’s light, creamy, a little salty, and a little sweet – great for adding texture to something when you don’t want to dominate all the flavors around it – like this one…



Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of beets, peeled and sliced thin – a millimeter or two if you can manage that
• 1 pint of cherries
• 1 T. ginger, grated or minced
• 1 thai chili pepper, seeded and minced
• Juice and zest of one lemon
• Up to 1 T. honey (optional)
• 2 shots of Cabernet Sauvignon (can use Shiraz, Barolo, etc.)
• 1 shot of Meyers’s Dark rum (can use Goslins’s Black Rum, Bacardi Dark Reserve, etc.)
• 1 4 oz. container of fresh soft ricotta (can use chevre or unflavored Boursin)
• 1 t. fresh thyme or 1/3 t. dried thyme
• 1 t. aged balsamic vinegar (can use regular balsamic vinegar)
• Salt & pepper to taste

Recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Wash, stem, and pit the cherries. They’re going to get pureed, so you can cut them before pitting them if it’s easier for you. I like to use a chopstick to put cherries – just hold them in one hand and poke a chopstick through the part where the pit is and it should poke out the other end! Anywhere, however you do it, add them to a small saucepan
3. Also add in the minced pepper, minced ginger, lemon juice, lemon zest, wine, and rum. Use an immersion blender to blend the ingredients (or throw everything in a real blender to do it). Place the saucepan over high heat to bring to a boil, and then reduce to low to simmer
4. While the sauce is reducing, peel and slice the beets. Use a mandoline to do the slicing if you have one – I don’t, so I just used my chef’s knife
5. Taste the sauce to see if it is sweet enough for your liking. If not, add honey until it is
6. Place the sliced beets in an oven-safe bowl. Pour the cherry sauce over the beets and stir them so that each beet is coated. Put the beets with sauce in the oven for 45-60 minutes, or until they’re soft
7. Put a few slices of beet on a fork. Add a dollop of ricotta, a drop or two of aged balsamic, and a few bits of thyme. Repeat! If you have friends around, I recommend forming an assembly line

Options:

• There are a couple different ways you can plate this. I did it here as single bites because it was for a dinner party, but you could also do it as a salad with some arugula
• The sauce can be made ahead of time – also try it on a pork loin roast or on biscuits or on basically anything
• The beets can be roasted ahead of time and refrigerated – they’re great cold too!

The Basics – Small Bites:

• If you’re having some friends over for dinner, small bites are fun way to entertain. It’s a great way to try out new flavors as a cook and as an eater, especially if you have something that is too delicate or too flavorful or just too expensive to make in larger quantities. It’s how fancy restaurants can serve a dozen (or two) courses – small bites, big flavors
• Make as much as possible ahead of time! Here I made made the sauce one day, sliced and roasted the beets another day, and then served them another day. Much easier!
• I like making soups and serving them as small bites – just use small bowls and small spoons. It’s a great way to make one modest-sized pot of soup and have 10 people try it
• If you’re serving individual bites and not just small plates, try plating them on spoons or forks (like I did here) or in shot glasses – something that is easy to use to eat instantly
• Another advantage to doing single bites like this is that you control exactly what someone tastes when they eat it. If you had a pile of beets, a scoop of soft cheese, and some random sprinkles of thyme and balsamic vinegar, the person eating it will be assembling bites using any or all of these at a time. When you put that one bite together, you control exactly what they’re getting!