Roasted Beets with Anchovy Dressing

Let’s Hear it For the Love of Beets!

Beets, you either love them or you hate them, there doesn’t seem to be much middle ground on this subject. I always chuckle when I hear people say they taste like dirt because all I can think is that while I’m not aware of ever having actually eaten dirt, I guess I’d be a big fan, if it tastes like beets. I love the earthy sweet funkiness of their flavor and have happily used them in salads, flat breads, pastas, etc. Beets have enough inherent flavor to not get lost when combined with other strong flavors and that’s what’s going on in this recipe.

While this recipe is simple, I think it’s my favorite of all my beet recipes. Sometimes ingredients come together and end up being so much more than their individual parts. For instance, the dressing is nothing more than a whole tin of anchovies in olive oil, red wine vinegar, more olive oil, plenty of black pepper, and the reserved drippings from the roasted beets. But once these few ingredients are all whisked together, the anchovies mellow, the red wine vinegar and beet drippings blend together and take on complexity, and the olive oil enriches all of it. I could eat it by the spoonful.

Roasting beets is one of those easy things we do in the kitchen that produces something so delicious as to be kind of magical. At least that’s how I see it. Scrubbed and trimmed beets that have been drizzled with a little olive oil and salt are wrapped in a foil packet, placed in the oven, and an hour later you’ve got deeply flavored gorgeous beets that only need a simple treatment in order to be delicious.

For ease of cleanup, I use disposable gloves when I peel roasted beets. I just rub off the skins with a paper towel and my beets are ready to go. After slicing and placing them on a platter, I spoon on all the dressing. There’s enough dressing so that when you scoop it onto your plate you’ll want to soak up those juices with some good bread. That’s one of the best parts for me.

A little arugula, sliced red onion, toasted pine nuts, capers, and more black pepper are the only other things I added to the dressed beets. I don’t think they need anything else. I think this is as close to perfect food as I’m ever likely to experience. It really is that good. And if you don’t happen to have any pine nuts on hand, toasted walnuts would also be good here, as would some baby spinach leaves if you don’t have arugula.

I’ve gotta tell you what else I served with this meal. I slow roasted a pork butt, which I seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic and oregano. I didn’t brown it first. It was a big bone-in pork butt – about 9 pounds. I placed it in my largest Duch oven, added a couple cups of dry white wine to the pot, put on the lid, and let it braise at 275° for 3 hours. I then removed the lid and let it continue to cook for another 2 hours, at which time it got nice and crusty. I turned on the broiler and crisped up the fat for the last few minutes. I never needed to add any additional liquid to the pot. It produced its own beautiful drippings that I let cook down a little, after I’d removed the meat from the pot, and served them as a pan sauce, from which I had skimmed the fat.

So, chunks of that unctuous pork, the beets, and plenty of crusty bread were our full meal. It was one of the best meals I’ve cooked in awhile. Last night my son asked, “Why can’t we have this for Thanksgiving?” Yeah, why indeed? Sounds good to me. I’d happily eat these beets any time of the year.