It’s summer time and that means lots of salads on the menu. Salads can be a meal unto themselves or served as a side dish. This one can be either/or depending upon your appetite.
I was at the Farmer’s Market one Saturday morning a while back and I picked up some beets and some lovely heirloom tomatoes with no clear idea what I was going to do with them. I met a friend at the market and as we talked about what we were buying she saw my beets and said, “Ah, I see goat cheese with that!” “Good idea”, I said to myself, and so I came up with the idea for this salad.
Our daughter’s friend, Jenny, was over for dinner that day and she loved the salad. She told her family about it and her mom asked me for the recipe. That’s always tough for me because mostly there isn’t one and I have to try and remember what I actually did. Fortunately I was able to recall this this one well enough to write it down. Jenny’s dad liked the salad so much he insisted on it at almost every meal for about a month after before they surely got sick of it. I hope you enjoy it just as much but please, don’t eat yourself sick of it!
As fruits and vegetables ripen on the vine/branch they produce a gas called ethylene . It is the ethylene that turns red skinned fruits red. Tomatoes reach their full color and flavor at the end of the ripening process which only occurs when the fruit is on the vine. Once picked, the ripening process stops. Unfortunately the shelf life of tomatoes after fully ripening is very short and they are quite delicate which makes them difficult to transport to market without being bruised.
To get around this problem growers harvest their tomatoes when they are still green and quite hard. In specially designed chambers they spray the green, flavorless tomatoes with ethylene gas to turn their skin red prematurely. What you end up with in the supermarket is an artificially red, unripe and completely flavorless tomato.
If you have ever grown a tomato plant you will know that it produces tomatoes of different sizes and at irregular times during the season. In the commercial tomato world this presents a problem in that the farmer cannot depend on a consistent and predictable crop. Some time in the 1920’s farmers bred a tomato plant that produced tomatoes that not only developed and ripened all at once, but were also more or less the same size. A much more convenient and profitable outcome for them. Unfortunately, in the process they also bred out much of the flavor!
Summer is tomato season and only the best, vine ripened tomatoes are worth eating. Heirloom tomatoes, in my opinion, have much better flavor and texture than your basic supermarket tomatoes and are preferred for this recipe. If heirlooms are not available where you live, choose the best tomatoes you can find.
When choosing beets, try to get ones that are no larger than 1.5-2″ (4-5cm) in diameter. They are sweeter and more flavorful that the very big beets (and they cook faster too.) My childhood memory of beets is of sliced, pickled beets out of a jar. In spite of that I actually grew up liking them. Roasting beets brings out their natural sweetness with a deeper, more complex flavor.
Bon Appetite!
Heirloom Tomato Salad with Roasted Beets and Goat Cheese
Ingredients
Salad
- 8-9 red beets – no larger than 1 ½-2" (4-5cm) diameter
- 4-5 heirloom tomatoes – or other good vine ripened tomatoe
- ¾ cup crumbled goat cheese – *See note below
Dressing
- 1 TBS shallot – finely chopped
- 1 TBS red wine vinegar
- 3 TBS olive oil – extra virgin
- 2 Tsp Dijon mustard
- salt and pepper
Instructions
Roast the Beets
- Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
- Trim the tops from the beets leaving about 1” of the stems – do not remove the “tail”. (keeping an inch of the tops and the tails prevents the beets from “bleeding” as they roast)
- Wrap the beets, 4 or 5 at a time in a large sheet of foil, closing it tightly.
- Place the foil packages on a cookie sheet and roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour depending on the size of the beets. The tip of a sharp knife should slide easily into the beet with little resistance.
- Remove the beets from the oven and set aside to cool.
- With a small knife cut off the tops and tails and scrape the skin off the beets. (it is best to wear an apron for this job because beet juice stains don’t wash out!)
- Cut the beets into ¼” slices or ½” cubes and set aside in a medium bowl.
- Slice the tomatoes ¼” thick and place in a large bowl. **See note below
For the Dressing
- Place all the ingredients except the EVO in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Slowly pour in the oil, whisking continuously to form an emulsion. Add a sprinkle of salt and pepper.
- Adjust the seasoning and balance. Add more vinegar or oil by teaspoons; too mild for you? Add more vinegar. Too astringent? Add a little more oil.
Assembling the Salad
- Dress the beets with half the dressing.
- Toss the tomatoes with the remaining dressing. Gently mix in the beets. Do this just before serving and be gentle with it. The beets will tend to stain everything a uniform pink color if you are too aggressive.
- Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.
- If you are serving guests, transfer the salad to a clean bowl before sprinkling the crumbled goat cheese over the top. (Family is generally not so fussy about having a clean serving bowl!)
Notes
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