Roasted beetroot with yoghurt and preserved lemon (Ottolenghi)

A really outstanding beetroot recipe from the book "Simple" by Ottolenghi. A healthy match made in heaven, on its own or alongside smoked trout, salmon or mackerel. This salad can be made the day before serving. Just add the dill and the tahini yoghurt at the serving moment. In my opinion this sits as well on a festive Christmas table as on a lunch or dinner buffet. We loved this combination of flavours, not to speak of the gorgeous burgundy colour.

I chose to steal the original English recipe straight out of Ottolenghi's book due to my limited time at the moment. I should have translated the recipe both into Finnish for this Maalaisbistro blog and into Swedish for Landebistro, but I opted for this quicker solution after some thought. I hope nobody minds.

"I'm not lazy, I'm on power saving mode."

4 servings as a side dish:

1 kg beetroot, scrubbed clean but skin left on

2 tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1 small red onion, very thinly sliced (100 g)

1 small preserved lemon, skin and flesh finely chopped (40 g)

2 tbsp lemon juice

15 g dill, roughly shredded

1 tbsp tahini

150 g Greek-style yoghurt

salt and black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees fan.

2. Wrap the beetroots individually in tin foil, place on a baking tray and roast for 30-60 minutes, depending on size, until a knife inserted goes through smoothly. When cool enough to handle, peel off the skin and cut the beetroot into 1/2 cm slices. Place in a large mixing bowl and set aside to cool.

3. Put the olive oil into a small frying pan and place on a medium heat. Add the cumin seeds and cook for about 3 minutes, until they start to pop. Pour the seeds and oil over the beetroot along with the onion, preserved lemon, lemon juice, 10 g of the dill, 1 teaspoon of salt and a grind of black pepper. Mix everything together well, then transfer the salad on to a large serving plate.

4. Stir the tahini into the yoghurt and dot this over the beetroot in four or five places. Stir minimally - you want the yoghurt and beets to mix only slightly - then sprinkle over the remaining dill.