Beetroot and Radichio Gratin
This delicious recipe is taken from our BOOM ambassador, Anna Jones' first book 'A modern way to cook'. A collection of delicious, healthy, inspiring vegetarian recipes – that are so quick to make they’re achievable on any night of the week.
This is a tray of crisp-edged beetroots, winter herbs and golden potatoes.
A plate of incredible tones of deep pink and purple – lurid colours, but soft, sweet, warming and super-tasty favours. The beetroots perfectly counter the gentle bitterness of the radicchio, so if you are new to bitter leaves this is a great place to start. If you can’t find radicchio, a couple of red chicory will work well. Bitter leaves are really good for digestion. They are even thought to help counter cravings for sweet foods, and if you are anything like me, sometimes a bit of help with the sugar cravings can be a good thing.
Top this gratin with a punchy gremolata, chopped fresh herbs with proud amounts of citrus and garlic; the grassy freshness, zippy orange and punch of garlic take this gratin to the next level. I serve it with a watercress salad, but if you like you could have some bread on the side for mopping up the juices.
THE RECIPE - SERVES 4
750g organic beetroots
300g small to medium organic waxy potatoes
1 head of organic radicchio
a few sprigs of fresh thyme
a few sprigs of fresh sage
3 cloves of garlic
1 unwaxed organic lemon
125ml organic white wine
125ml hot organic vegetable stock
FOR THE GREMOLATA
a small bunch of fresh parsley
½ a clove of garlic
1 red chilli
the zest of 1 large unwaxed orange
Method
Preheat the oven to 220°C/200°C fan/gas 7. Fill and boil a kettle and get
all your ingredients and equipment together.
Peel the beetroots and use a food processor or a mandolin to finely slice
them. Scatter them in a deep baking dish approximately 20cm × 25cm.
Slice the potatoes in the same way and scatter them over the beetroots.
Shred the radicchio as you would a lettuce – avoiding and discarding the
root – and add this to the tray too.
Pick the leaves off the stalks of the thyme and sage, slice the garlic and add
to the dish, then grate over the zest of the lemon and season well with
salt and pepper. Toss everything together, then use your hands to press and
push everything level in the dish. Pour over the white wine and the hot
stock – the liquid should come about halfway up the potatoes – and bake
in the oven for 30 minutes.
