Heirloom Tomato Salad with Roasted Beets and Goat Cheese

A richly flavored salad, perfect for lunch on a summer day

Course Salad

Cuisine American

Prep Time 20

Roasting Beets 1

Total Time 1 20

Servings people

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

*Goat cheese is not everybody's favorite. You can use feta cheese instead, if you prefer.

Feta can be made from sheep's milk or cow's milk; the sheep's milk feta having more personality. If that's still not to your liking, go for the cow's milk feta which is much milder.

**If your tomatoes are very watery you will want to seed and juice them first. Watery tomatoes will dilute the dressing which will end up in a puddle at the bottom of the bowl rather than cloaking the tomatoes and beets.

If you are not familiar with removing the seeds and juice from tomatoes, start by cutting them in half through the equator. (Imagine the tomato is a globe and the stem end is the North Pole.) Gently squeeze each half to get out the seeds and gel-like substance. Poke into the crevices with your finger to remove any stubborn seeds then slice the tomatoes.

Incidentally, if you are using the so-called, Plum or Roma tomatoes - those that have a long, oval shape rather than spherical - cut them pole to pole (sticking with the globe analogy) and cut out the tough white-ish core.