Friday, November 30, 2007

Beetroots, dying herbs and the back of the fridge.

For the past few weeks, they have been ruling my life. Finally, I ran out of ideas with them...or so I thought.
I'd done the beetroot risotto thing with rocket and lemon.
I'd done the roasted baby beets with rocket, goats fetta, walnuts and balsamic.
I'd done the raw grated beetroot and carrot salad.
I'd done the beetroot, goats curd, onion jam on spelt thing (best work lunch ever).
I'd done the beetroot pesto.
I'd done beetroot and ricotta ravioli.
All of a sudden, I was left with 4 roasted beets, which I had peeled, sitting in the fridge waiting for something to be done. Being quite uninspired from working at the bank (best job title ever- Discharge Initiation Officer) they sat there for about two days.
Finally this morning, I had a wave of inspiration, and a slight hang over from the night before. (Note to self, do not ever let work people coax you into skulling a pint of ale proceeding with shots of Jager in V, chased with gin and tonics ever again.) Nevertheless, it occurred to me that anything wrapped in a pastry is automatically ten times more appealing. So, I thought I would make filo parcels with the beets and other ingredients I had lying around. That, and I needed to desperately use up the filo I had in the freezer, which I was apparnetly not meant to freeze (according to packet instructions, but who reads them anyways?).
So, I chopped up some walnuts and parsley (which I also had to desperately use up) and mixed it in some ricotta and threw in about 4 chunks of marinated goats fetta, which i broke up and mixed it all together with the cubed beetroot. I doused the whole mix in black pepper and proceeded to make triangles the size of my hand in parcels.
I stood at the oven, watching it skeptically for a good 20 minutes, baking it on a high heat after the egg wash I gave it. The purpose of the baking was only to really brown the pastry and heat the filling, as all the ingredients are edible raw, or cooked anyways. I felt like a child, sitting impatiently in front of the oven staring at the lonely pastry, slowly turning a golden brown.
Finally, I ripped it out of the oven and cut it in half. it was so luciously white, pink and bespeckeled with green, all encased in...PASTRY!
I split it with my housemate, and we ate it with some onion and chilli chutney/jam/relish (see, it was also in the back of the fridge and I can no longer identify the label properly). I was very surprised that it worked out and seeing as I don't work in quantities I will not attempt to write a recipe.
I didn't get a chance to take a photo, but one will follow. I have never frozen beetroot before, let alone goats fetta, but, there are now around 6-5 of these pastries wrapped up in my freezer. Fuck the packet directions, if they die, I'll cry about it later.