benefits and harms, popular beetroot recipes

Red beets are not rare or excep­tion­al veg­eta­bles. But it can be exquis­ite. Even more than that, beet­root fits per­fect­ly into the con­cept of haute cui­sine: it has an expres­sive taste, an attrac­tive top appear­ance, it is healthy and goes well with a huge num­ber of prod­ucts.

In its raw form, it “works” well in sal­ads of greens and fresh veg­eta­bles, it can be both an appe­tiz­er and a side dish. It is enough to sprin­kle it with rasp­ber­ry or apple cider vine­gar — and it will turn into a gas­tro­nom­ic mir­a­cle.

How to grow beets?

In our con­di­tions, beets are rarely sown for seedlings. The seeds are sim­ply soaked for sev­er­al days and sown in open ground when it warms up to about 10 ° C, as a rule, this is at the end of April — the first half of May. A bed for beets is made 10–15 cm deep, and this is not a whim, but an impor­tant detail, because the veg­etable needs to form a root crop, which means you need to “hold on to the ground”. It should also be ensured that the soil for plant­i­ng is not dry: beets are a mois­ture-lov­ing crop.

What is useful red beets?

Men­tions of red beets, and rather flat­ter­ing ones, are also found in Hip­pocrates and Paracel­sus. The ancient Aes­cu­lapius con­sid­ered this root crop to be a good rem­e­dy for ane­mia, diges­tive dis­eases, an excel­lent pre­ven­tion for the lym­phat­ic sys­tem, and it was also advised to relieve chills. They were not mis­tak­en: mod­ern research con­firms that beets are real­ly capa­ble of a lot.

In red root veg­eta­bles, in addi­tion to calo­ries, there are also vit­a­mins, fiber, antiox­i­dants … In gen­er­al terms and briefly: beets con­tain vit­a­mins A and E, vit­a­mins B and P, as well as cop­per, mag­ne­sium, iodine and folic acid. Great prod­uct!

Dietary features of beets

Beets are not too high-calo­rie veg­etable: 42 kcal per 100 g of prod­uct. But due to the high con­tent of trace ele­ments and fiber, it is a “reg­u­lar” in dietary sports nutri­tion and in the diet for peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing increased phys­i­cal activ­i­ty.

The glycemic index of raw beets is 30 units, there are only 15 units of sug­ars in its tops, and the index of boiled beets is 65 units. There­fore, peo­ple suf­fer­ing from dia­bet­ic dis­ease should care­ful­ly mon­i­tor the con­sump­tion of this bright veg­etable.

Therapeutic and prophylactic properties of beets

Beet­root juice has a high con­tent of bioflavonoids, which improve diges­tion and nor­mal­ize metab­o­lism. Due to the high fiber con­tent, beets are also great for detox­i­fy­ing the body. In folk med­i­cine, beets are also used to treat col­i­tis, intesti­nal dis­or­ders, and con­sti­pa­tion.

In addi­tion, beet­root juice copes well with colds.

A sig­nif­i­cant con­tent of vit­a­min B9 allows us to rec­om­mend the use of beets as an addi­tion­al pre­ven­tion of heart dis­ease. Beets are also use­ful for ane­mia, beriberi, exhaus­tion. And here’s anoth­er life hack: the day turned out to be exhaust­ing­ly dif­fi­cult, both phys­i­cal and ner­vous strength are at the lim­it — eat a sal­ad with boiled beets. You will be sur­prised: it real­ly helps.

To whom beets are contraindicated

Beets are famous for their abil­i­ty to reg­u­late blood pres­sure, but those who suf­fer from hyper­ten­sion should use them with cau­tion.

Red beets should be exclud­ed from the diet for those who have low blood pres­sure.

It is also con­traindi­cat­ed for those diag­nosed with high acid­i­ty, kid­ney dis­ease, osteo­poro­sis.

In dia­betes mel­li­tus, the use of beets should be strict­ly con­trolled and take into account that dur­ing heat treat­ment the prod­uct changes the glycemic index.

The subtleties of cooking and recipes from beets

It hap­pens that boiled beets some­times have an earthy after­taste. But this is not a prob­lem: sprin­kle it with a drop of wine vine­gar — and there will be no trace of an unpleas­ant after­taste. And so that it doesn’t even exist, act proac­tive­ly: add a lit­tle lemon juice to the water for boil­ing beets.

Beets are a non-waste veg­etable. Its young tops can be used in the same way as spinach. It is stewed and steamed, and added to fresh sal­ads like greens. Worth a try!

Chicken liver salad with fresh beets

Cook­ing time: 40 min.

For 4 serv­ings:

• 200 g red beets
• 8 stalks of young onions with bulbs
• 2 oranges
• 2 small onions
• 50 g assort­ed leafy sal­ads
• 50 g young beet leaves
• 400 g chick­en liv­er
• 3 Art. l. olive oil
• 2 tbsp. l. wine vine­gar
• 30 g but­ter
• salt pep­per

Squeeze the juice from 1 orange and strain. Peel the remain­ing orange, dis­as­sem­ble into slices and, remov­ing the films, cut into slices. For the sauce, whisk orange juice with vine­gar and olive oil, add salt and pep­per to taste.

Peel, wash and chop green onions. Clean the beets, wash and cut into thin strips.

Peel the onion, chop and fry in a pan in but­ter over low heat for 3 min­utes. Add chick­en liv­er, salt, pep­per, increase heat to medi­um and cook for 6–8 min­utes, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly.

Rinse sal­ads and tops, sort, dry, mix in a bowl with green onions, beets and pour over the sauce. Arrange veg­eta­bles with sauce on por­tioned plates, add orange slices and liv­er and mix.

Baked beets in a salt “fur coat”

Cook­ing time: 2 h 30 min.

For 4 serv­ings:

• 4 small beets 100–150 g each
• 500 g coarse table salt
• 700 g flour
• 2 tsp pep­per­corns
• 1 bunch thyme
• 6 pro­teins
• but­ter for serv­ing

Wash and dry the beets. Heat the oven up to 180C. Mix flour with salt in a large bowl, add pep­per and chopped thyme, pour in egg whites and use a mix­er to knead a homo­ge­neous dough.

Pre­pare a bak­ing sheet lined with parch­ment. Divide the salt dough into 4 parts, roll each one and cov­er the pre­pared beets with salt cakes so that the roots are com­plete­ly cov­ered with dough. Put the prod­ucts on a bak­ing sheet at a small dis­tance from each oth­er.

Roast the beets in the oven for 2 hours.

Remove the beets from the oven and let them cool at room tem­per­a­ture for 15 min­utes. Trans­fer the beets to serv­ing plates, break the salt crust. Add a lit­tle melt­ed but­ter to each serv­ing of beets.

Pork belly with beetroot confit and cinnamon

Cook­ing time: 3 hours

For 4 serv­ings:

• 600 g small red beets
• 4 slices raw smoked pork bel­ly
• 50 ml veg­etable oil
• 3 art. l. liq­uid hon­ey
• 1/2 tsp ground cin­na­mon
• 1/2 tsp ground black pep­per, nut­meg, cloves and cin­na­mon
• salt and pep­per to taste

Peel, wash and dry the beets, cut into halves or quar­ters and fry in a saucepan over low heat for 30 g of but­ter for 3 min­utes. Salt and pep­per the beets, add half the ground cin­na­mon and pour a lit­tle water into the saucepan. Cov­er the saucepan with a sheet of parch­ment and cook over low heat for 2 hours, adding water as it boils away.

Mean­while, pre­pare the meat. Heat the oven up to 130C. Fry pork slices in a pan in a mix­ture of veg­etable and remain­ing but­ter for 2 min­utes on each side. Sprin­kle the meat with a mix­ture of ground spices and the remain­ing cin­na­mon, salt and pep­per. Driz­zle the meat with hon­ey and let it caramelize on all sides.

Trans­fer the fried meat to a small bak­ing dish. Deglaze the fat remain­ing in the pan by pour­ing 250 ml of cold water. Bring water to a boil, cook for 2 min­utes and pour into a mold over meat. Cov­er the dish with the meat with a sheet of alu­minum foil and bake in the oven for 2 hours.

Trans­fer the beets to the meat dish and bake for anoth­er 30 min­utes. Serve the dish hot, with the juice formed dur­ing bak­ing, as a sauce.

Soft croutons with beetroot syrup

Cook­ing time: 1 hour

For 6 serv­ings:

• beet­root with 5 beets
• 2 young beets
• 150 g brown sug­ar
• 2 cm gin­ger root
• 1 vanil­la pod
• 6 slices stale wheat bread
• 400 ml milk
• 1 sachet of vanil­la sug­ar
• 2 eggs
• 20 g but­ter
• 1 st. l veg­etable oil

Rinse the peeled beets and tops, dry and fine­ly chop. Peel and grate the gin­ger. Put the pre­pared prod­ucts in a saucepan, scrape a vanil­la pod on them, add sug­ar, pour in 200 ml of water and bring to a boil. Cook over low heat for 30 min­utes, stir­ring reg­u­lar­ly.

Soak bread in milk. In a sep­a­rate bowl, beat eggs with vanil­la sug­ar. Dip bread slices in egg mix­ture on both sides.

In a fry­ing pan in a hot mix­ture of veg­etable oil and but­ter, fry the bread for 5 min­utes on each side. Put the fin­ished crou­tons on a serv­ing dish. Serve warm, driz­zled with beet­root syrup.

Young beetroot salad

Cook­ing time: 20 min.

For 4 serv­ings:

• Leafy haulm from 1 bunch of young beets
• 100 g spinach
• 4 figs
• 2 tbsp. l. roast­ed sun­flower seeds
• 2 tbsp. l. chopped hazel­nuts
• 100 g dried or smoked chick­en breast
• For sauce: juice of 1 lemon
• 6 Art. l. olive oil
• 1 Art. l. wal­nut oil
• salt pep­per

Rinse the greens and spinach, sort, dry and tear with your hands. Wash the figs and cut into length­wise slices. Cut the chick­en breast into thin strips.

Mix the pre­pared prod­ucts in a sal­ad bowl. Add seeds and nuts.

To make the sauce, mix lemon juice with olive oil, add salt and pep­per to taste. Mash a few slices of figs and stir into the sauce.

Pour dress­ing over sal­ad and mix.

Do you love beets?