Beet Bruschetta
Bread has a long a sacred presence among the peoples of the Mediterranean, where it was just as much the staff of life as rice is to the peoples of southeast Asia or maize is to the peoples of central America. Made in the traditional way with nothing but flour, water, salt, wild-yeast leavening, and sometimes oil, bread has a rather short shelf life, particularly in Mediterranean climates where it will start to dry out within a day or two of baking. Thus, a considerable cooking focus was placed on creative uses of day-old bread. Bruschetta is one of these, whereby Tuscans enlivened their day-old (unsalted) bread through grilling and basting with good olive oil, garlic, and a little salt. While beginning with this humble origin, over the last half millennium bruschetta has become a standard Italian antipasti, with any number of increasingly extravagant garnishes being piled on top of grilled olive oil and garlic bread. The concept for this recipe came from what was one of the very best restaurants of the Door Peninsula of eastern Wisconsin about a decade ago: T. Ashwells in Ellison Bay. It is now sadly out of business, but at the time they did a wonderful Med-Rim dinner for locals in February at the very end of the season, just before they took 2 months off before gearing up for the next tourist season. And, they made a bruschetta something like this for those dinners. At some point we had the hubris to try and make it ourselves. We think we got pretty close. 1 day-old baguette or loaf of Italian bread Cut bread into 1-1½ inch slices, brush generously with olive oil, and grill. When it begins to brown, remove and set aside. Heat a cooking pan over medium-high heat and add in 1 tablespoon olive oil, and when hot add in the chopped roasted garlic, marjoram, and rosemary. When the garlic begins to brown (1 minute or so), add the shaved beets and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes until the beets begin to soften. Add in the shredded basil and balsamic vinegar to deglaze pan, and keep over flame long enough to cook out the water and create a thickened sauce. Remove from heat, and place an equal amount onto each grilled bread slice. When we think of beets, we think red, but beets come in a wide range of colors. While Bull’s Blood will give you the expected darkest red color, why not also consider the bright yellow Golden Beet, white Albino Beet, or candy-striped Chioggia Beet? Use a garlic that is meant to be roasted to bring out its full flavor. I recommend any of the standard Purple Stripes (try Shatili or Samarkand Market), Marbled Purple Stripes (for instance Siberian), or Porcelains (try Music). Use a standard pesto basil, such as Genovese or Lettuce Leaf. Purple basils are probably not worth the effort if you’re using a red beet, as their color will get lost. But something like Dark Purple Oval would provide an interesting contrast to yellow or white beets. For the Baslamic Vinegar, it may be worth it to try one of the higher-quality, more syrupy types, rather than the mass-produced cheapies, as the former has more sugar and depth of flavor. Archive |
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