Au recherche de la betterave perdue

When I was about seventeen or eighteen I went up top London on my own; I can’t remember why, but I was going to catch a bus from the coach station at Victoria, and as I had a little while to wait and as it was lunch time I wandered about and found somewhere to sit and have something to eat. I don’t remember what I had, but with it came beetroot, and beetroot in a sour cream dressing. I didn’t know it was sour cream at that time, it was only  later when I worked it out.

Up until then I had only ever had beetroot sliced and in vinegar, malt vinegar. Now that is nice in its own way, and its my husband’s favourite way of eating beetroot. But once I’d had this beet in sour cream I suddenly saw all sorts of possibilities for it. Since then I’ve cooked and eaten beetroot in all sorts of different ways, hot and cold. This simple way of dressing it is still one of my favourites.

Having read a lot of Russian literature, and Russian cookery books, I was interested in borscht, but never managed to make it and have it tasting nice until I came across and Iraqi recipe. The key thing in the recipe was that you peeled the beets before cooking them, and kept the water for stock… this stops the beets having that strong earthy flavour, and just have their own delicious taste.

Whenever I make this salad beetroot dish, I’m always taken back to wandering round London in brilliant sunshine, with blue skies above, and the creamy grey London brick buildings seeming to gleam and finding the little place where I first ate salade de betterave à la crème.