Beetroot (Beets) In Sugar Crust Experiment

If I come across a new way of cooking something that doesn’t require buying a whole set of new equipment then I’ll bookmark, it was the case with these beets. There’s a blog that I love visiting because you never know what you’re going to find, it’s like Christmas day, it’s always a surprise what Linda will come up with next at Playing with Fire and water…Linda is an inspiration and such a refreshing change from the norm.

The idea of sugarcrust roasting food was mentioned on Linda’s blog first with bananas and then with beetroot. I’m always trying to find ways of cooking beetroot since it’s one of Bikerboy’s favourite and although I’m lukewarm about them they’re so good for you that I’ll try and eat them as often as I can stand them.

One very busy cooking Saturday afternoon while in the middle of other recipes and preparing a meal for the family I decided to attempt Linda’s idea of the sugar crust beets but I was rather careless with my mixture of egg white & sugar by not sealing the beets properly. Halfway into baking them, they found the little gap I left and the sugar syrup they created started to irrupted like a volcano…it was quite spectacular, it bubble away into huge bubbles all pouring out and unfortunately I had to remove the dish from the oven before the beetroots were fully baked because the bubbles were pouring onto my oven floor…I hate cleaning ovens…

You would think I would be annoyed that I wasn’t able to complete the baking of the beetroots, wouldn’t you? Nope…I couldn’t be happier at the results, in fact I was delighted…I had a….WOW…moment. When I tasted this delicious sweet earthy syrup some of the beetroots had created I was addicted to it. It was the sort of syrup you could use both in a sweet or savoury context depending what you added to it…I just kept digging my finger into it and licking it off and….thinking….thinking of all the sorts of combinations I could use this with. In fact I ended up drizzling some over Spanish Serrano ham, and this salty ham with the sweet, very earthy slight savoury syrup just worked for me and now at the back of my mind I’m busy…thinking…about dressings made from it, using with venision, duck or in dessert, meringue, chocolate which Linda suggested is a modern day classic, chocolate & beetroot cake.

I’m indifferent about beetroot but I adore the syrup they produce, next time I can actually produce it on purpose. I love it when kitchen accidents end with such gorgeous tasting results.