THE ‘YOU-CAN’T-BEET-THIS’ SALAD

Enough of the butter, bacon and beer. It’s time for another B, a healthier one, to end 2015 with. Without any fanfare, presenting to you…the honest, humble beet!

Now, mine is not so much a formal recipe as a suggestion on pairing, assembling and serving beet with some other healthy stuff to make a salad, which also tastes pretty good. So go ahead and play around with it a bit.

Boil some beets, a large bowlful, peel and cube them.

Wash, de-stem and roughly cut a pack of arugula / roquette / rucola (whatever you call it in your neck of the woods).

Dice a large red apple (don’t ask why not a green), removing the pips. Or alternatively, slice open the segments of a couple of oranges. Or, go ahead and use both.

Finely slice a large red onion (again, don’t ask why not a white, just do it!).

In another bowl, take two spoons of honey, add some Dijon mustard, squeeze half a lemon, a couple of drops of Balsamic vinegar and sprinkle in some red chili flakes (c’mon, a shake more than you think is necessary, to balance out the sweetness). A little coarsely ground black pepper as well. Whisk. That’s your dressing. Set it aside.

Arrange the arugula leaves on a salad dish to form the bed and top them with the beet, onion and apples (or oranges). No, no, no… not in an unseemly heap! Somewhat evenly distribute the fruit and veg, so that the slice and dice look so nice, and so that the beet doesn’t spread much of its colour (visually, it looks more appealing). Toss some halved walnuts and dried cranberries over this. Or even pomegranate or almonds. And refrigerate till just before serving.

When it’s salad time, pour the dressing over and serve cold.

It’s got crunch, it’s got colour, it’s got sweetness, it’s got a dash of chili which you can recognise and it’s got health, too! It’s a great accompaniment to whatever else is on your plate this season.

And most of all, it reduces the guilt when you go back to the other three Bs the day after you break your new year’s resolution.