Fifty shades of the colour purple

In preparation for a sober night on the town in the lingering snow of the last Saturday in January I made a Beetroot Risotto. It's fair to say that Beetroot is a vegetable more often used as a side dish to a main course rather than being the central of it.

With the Moody Blues' excellent mellotron drenched 1970 offering "A Question of Balance" on the CD player I first diced two red onions, half a ginger root and three cloves of garlic. Next I took five medium sized beetroots, topped and tailed them and then cut them into cubes. I saved one the beetroots for later and fried the rest on a low light on the hob in my Le Cresceut dish with some olive oil. When the beetroot began to soften I added the garlic, ginger and onions as well as around half a tablespoon of white pepper. There was enough juice generated by the beetroot to allow the ingredients in the dish to cook without them drying.

While the contents of the Le Cresceut cooked steadily on the hob I boiled eight ounces of long grain rice in a pan with the spare pieces of beetroot. I used enough water to cover the rice and beetroot and once the rice began to show signs of boiling dry I added it to the Le Cresceut dish. The rice by this time had turned a pale orange colour.

In total I cooked the rice for around twenty minutes on a high heat in the pan before adding it to the Le Cresceut dish and in total I cooked the contents of the Le Cresceut dish for around forty minutes always making sure to add a little water if there was a danger of the dish drying up.

I poked the vegetables and the rice with a fork to be sure they were cooked and then served the food. The beetroot itself had a very earthy taste which was prevented from being too bland by the sharpness of the ginger and garlic while the rice added enough body to the meal to make it worthwhile as a stand alone main course.

At the end of cooking and ready to serve. 

The risotto glowing on a plate