Tuesday, 30 June 2009

• Beet Root Pizza

  I try my darnedest to support local and sustainable farming practices.  This is something of a new industry here in Thailand, although I guess you could say it is really an old industry coming back around, since until a few decades ago all farming here was both local and sustainable.  The seed and fertilizer companies gained significant influence, like they have elsewhere, creating a dependence on the part of farmers that is just now starting to be broken.

  When I'm at my local market, I make it a point to look for specials and seasonal items.  We don't really have as distinct growing seasons here as you do in more temperate climes, though.  This week, though, there was a special on beet roots.  Buy one pack, get one free.  Local, organic, and free!  What more do I need to be told?

   

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  I walked home with six packages of beets (yeah, all pre-wrapped in plastic trays and plastic wrap... what can you do?) - about fifteen beets, each about the size of a small orange. 

  Not knowing what to do with the beets, I decided a good first step would be to roast them.  This took a bit more than an hour but afterwards, I was rewarded with some beautiful and tasty roots.

  Looking at some recipes online, I decided I would make a beet root pizza for dinner last night and then use the rest of the beets for a borscht (beet root soup) later in the week.  The pizza was more of an idea rather than a specific recipe, a little bit of a walk on the culinary tightrope.

   

  First step - some pizza dough (always have some homemade half-whole wheat dough in the freezer) covered with homemade hummus (I keep portions of cooked chickpeas in the freezer, too) as a base.  In retrospect, the hummus, while tasty, wasn't the right choice.  Something acidic was needed to brighten the flavors and a tomato sauce or a tangy squash sauce would have been a better fit.

  

  Some onions, which I had baked at the same time as the beets with a little bit of balsamic vinegar.  These would have been more lovely had I spent a few hours making truly caramelized onions.

  

  Sliced beets on top.  I also boiled some eggs and was going to add these, but then forgot to take the container out of the refrigerator so they are still sitting in there this morning!

  

  A little bit of chèvre - goat cheese - sliced on top.  One recipe I read also used a little bit of mozzarella cheese, which would have been nice.  This pizza was a tad... fat-less.  Does that make sense?  Sometimes you need a little fat to make the flavors rounder and fuller.

  

  Just out of the oven - it looks quite nice but it isn't a balanced meal yet.

  

  Topped with some organic, locally-grown rocket (arugula) - now it is finished.  You can tell it is organic because of all the little bug bites on the leaves.  At least they left some for me.

  At the same time, I'm playing around with a new master bread recipe, an olive oil dough that has about 1/3 whole wheat flour.

  

  As you can see, it rises nice and with a dusting of flour and a truly sharp knife, it looks pretty.  (I just realized, as I searched for an entry about going to a local market to get my knives sharpened, that I haven't written that entry yet!)

  

  Even more so once it comes out of the oven.  This was tasty bread, but it is a quicker dough than the "no knead" recipes I've been using, and as such the interior has a very uniform crumb, almost like sandwich bread.  I kind of prefer to have some larger bubbles and spongier texture.

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