Pickled Beetroot, The Frugal Meal

This is a house of pickles.  Our breakfast, a poached local egg, (be it Chicken, Duck or even Turkey), a slice of Rye Sourdough and a Pickle of sorts, perhaps a spicy home-made Sauerkraut, Sweet Pickled Cucumbers, a briny Green Chilli… whatever sits beckoning on the dedicated shelf… an apparently frugal meal is in fact a feast.

Poached Turkey Egg on Sourdough with various Pickles

Gifted or gleaned the veg box is also often brimming. And fed up with several weeks of watching some once very fetching beetroot shrivelling, I decided yesterday to pickle them… in a month’s time these will provide a welcome variation on the breakfast table. 

Boil up: 50ml Apple Juice, 100ml Cider Vinegar, 100ml Balsamic Vinegar, 1/2tbsp Demerara Sugar, 6 peppercorns, 6 cloves, 1 tsp brown mustard seeds, I tsp coriander seed.

Add grated remains of 5 shrunken beets and ½ in. grated Root Ginger.  Bring to the boil again, then pot rapidly in sterilised jar with a pair of bay leaves, covered in the vinegar mix.  Allow at least a month to mature.

Eat Pickled Beetroot with: Goat's Cheese, serve with Mackerel to cut through the oil, with Pates and Rich Meats to give some bite or, simply, with a spoonful of yogurt on a bowl of Lentils.

This pickling Recipe can be used as a basis for pickling many a vegetable.  You might want to replace the Apple Juice with Orange or skip it all together, and although the Balsamic goes well with Beetroot, in a conventional pickle I would use a simpler Vinegar, such as Cider.

Other Pickle Recipes:  A Pickled Pear ; Pickled Gooseberries

 Le repas frugal, Pablo Picasso