The ABCs of Everyday French Cuisine 2: B for betterave

I bet you never thought of beets as a dangerous vegetable. But they can be treacherous indeed, as I learned when I was studying for my French driver's license test. In Northern France where they are cultivated, apparently they somehow (I've often wondered how) get squished on the road and can make driving a slippery affair.

This latent risk put aside, French beets are quite user-friendly. Unless, of course, you want to buy them raw and cook them yourself.

I've only done this once, to make a borscht that I thought would be extra-fantastic because I had spent hours boiling beets before actually making the dish. The results were inconclusive: sure, the borscht was yummy but I have made equally yummy borscht with beets sold in this format:

As far as I know, this is the most popular way to buy beets in France: pre-cooked and vacuum-packed. The "cook" just has to open the package-- very carefully unless she or he wants bright pink beet juice all over the kitchen -- and then cut the beets up for their most frequent use: in a salad as a starter:

(Flickr photo courtesy of bloggyboulga)

I don't happen to have any photos of my takes on the ever-popular betteraves vinaigrette, but the salad above, featuring pine nuts, capers and parmesan, looks like something I might try.

By now you've picked up on the basic idea: beets are generally served cold in France.

Other nice things to perk up a beet salad are:

• walnuts
• raisins
  
• Roquefort cheese
• lots of fresh parsley
• crumbled hard-boiled eggs (oeufs mimosa)
• fromage blanc or yogurt to replace the usual vinaigrette

The above explains just about everything I've ever done with beets in France, except for the apotheosis of my beet-preparing experience: betteraves marbrées.

I must admit I had never been prouder of what I had done to a beet:

I can't find the recipe anymore, but know it was taken from an issue of Régal magazine, which apparently doesn't have a website. It involved slicing the whole cooked beets -- very carefully -- and layering them with a ricotta-based filling, then topping them with pesto and finishing off with a drizzle of olive oil.

I haven't repeated this beet tour de force since September 2006.

It's just so darn easy to open those packets, hack up the beets, and toss them with vinaigrette and whatever else is on hand.