A Long and Messy Business. Rowley Leigh

      STEAMED BEETROOT AND TURNIPS WITH BELUGA

      LENTILS, PICKLED GARLIC AND LEMON

      I used red, golden and candy stripe (a.k.a. Chioggia) on this

      occasion, but all good beets may apply. Pickled garlic can

      be bought, though you can easily pickle your own, as below.

      Enough for six.

      1kg (2lb 4oz) mixed beetroot

      (with leaves if possible)

      200g (7oz) small turnips

      200g (7oz) black beluga

      lentils, green if not available

      1 red chilli

      a few sprigs of thyme

      2 bay leaves

      2 lemons, plus extra juice

      for seasoning

      olive oil, for seasoning

      30g (1oz) golden caster sugar

      200–300g (7–10½oz) beet

      tops or purple sprouting

      broccoli

      sea salt

      1 red chilli, deseeded and

      sliced into very thin rings,

      to garnish

      FOR THE PICKLED

      GARLIC

      30 garlic cloves, peeled

      2 tablespoons sea salt

      250ml (9fl oz) cider vinegar

      100g (3½oz) golden caster

      sugar

      ½ cinnamon stick

      10 cloves

      First, pickle the garlic. Sprinkle the garlic with the salt and

      leave for 4 hours. Bring all the other ingredients to the boil

      in a saucepan, then simmer for 10 minutes. Rinse the garlic

      and pour over the pickling juice. Bottle in a clean 500ml

      (18fl oz) jar and refrigerate, ideally for 2 weeks. Pickled

      garlic should last a year in the fridge.

      Wash the beetroot and turnips well, cutting off any

      stalks and leaves. Half-fill the bottom of a steamer with

      boiling water and place the vegetables in the top with

      a sprinkling of sea salt. Steam gently for 45 minutes.

      Meanwhile, rinse the lentils in cold water, then bring

      to a simmer in a pan with fresh cold water. Add the chilli,

      thyme and bay leaves and, without seasoning at this

      juncture, continue to simmer very gently without letting

      the lentils dry out. Once tender, remove from the heat and

      dress with sea salt, lemon juice and olive oil.

      Peel the lemons, paring off the zest without any pith.

      Cut this zest into very fine matchsticks and place in a

      small pan of cold water. Bring to the boil, then drain and

      refresh in cold water. In another pan, dissolve the sugar in

      100ml (31⁄2fl oz) water over a low heat, then add the lemon

      zest and simmer slowly until glossy and translucent. Lift

      out the zest and reserve.

      Rub the cooked beetroot and turnips with kitchen

      paper to remove the skins, then cut them into segments.

      Put the beet tops or broccoli in the steamer, with the

      beetroot and turnips on top just long enough to wilt them.

      Place the lentils in a serving dish and arrange the

      steamer’s contents on top. Slice 3 or 4 pickled garlic as

      thinly as possible and sprinkle over. Add some very thin

      rings of chilli, lemon juice, sea salt and olive oil to taste.

      WINE: Despite the vibrant flavours, it is the rich earthy

      taste of the beets that will win through. A full-bodied white

      with a little oak treatment will work very well – nothing

      like a glass of Meursault in the depths of February.

      55

      February

      Pretty as a Picture

      Castelfranco Salad with Pears and Blue Cheese

      We have become familiar not just with the deep maroon

      colours of radicchio but also with the asperity of its taste.

      While there are even more bitter members of the endive

      family (cicoria and puntarella come to mind) radicchio is

      still quite a shock to the novice palate and used sparingly

      in those salad mixes so beloved of supermarkets.

      I am not a fan of those bags of salad. Unless we are

      talking about mesclun – the Niçoise mix of various leaves

      picked in infancy, with an intense, herby flavour – I am a

      one-leaf sort of man. I do not want a salad to be a marriage

      of texture and dressing; I want to acknowledge the delicate

      flavour of a buttery lettuce heart, or a crisp, mildly bitter

      Cos (a.k.a. Romaine) or the full-on milky bitterness of

      an endive. I use a fresh head of lettuce and prepare it –

      washing and spinning – for the occasion and the dish. No

      leaf incarcerated in a plastic bag for several days can

      possibly compare.

      There is also an aesthetic involved. No one could ignore

      the splendour of a whole curly endive with a snow -white

      core, radiating out to primrose yellow, then a deep, coarse

      green exterior, all splayed out like an unruly mop.

      However, the most beautiful salad, the real looker, must

      be the radicchio di Castelfranco, more prosaically entitled

      the Castelfrank, or speckled endive.

      The varieties of radicchio are named