Beetroot, Ginger & Chocolate Risotto

You learn something new every day, or so the saying goes. Did you know, for example, that the first meal that was eaten on the moon by Armstrong and Aldrin was a roast turkey dinner with all the trimmings (freeze dried, one would assume)?

Or that sperm swim faster after they have been exposed to caffeine?

Or that the largest beetroot ever grown was over 18 feet in length?

Or that it is near impossible to take a good photo of a risotto? Especially a risotto that I promised you good people a couple of weeks ago (you'd thought I'd forgotten, hadn't you?)

It’s true – no matter how appealing it may look on the plate, in photographic form it will almost always take on the appearance of lumpy aardvark vomit.

You could gild it with gold leaf, adorn it with asparagus and top it with truffles but under the lights and through a lens it will still look about as appealing as a jock strap salad.

We tried. We really did. But even the best photo we got wouldn’t have looked out of place in a crime scene report. So you’ll have to make do with this representation instead. And the best thing about beetroot risotto is the colour anyway. So sit back, use your imagination and take note. Recipe below.



It’s hard to write a definitive recipe for risotto. There are so many variations (rice absorbency, stock quality, stirring capacity) that I hesitate to make any assertions for fear I will end up with angry emails and comments.

Instead, use this as a platform, a launch pad, or a mere eyebrow-raiser. All I will say is that it is certainly worth trying and that there is true deliciousness hidden behind the vaguely bizarre veneer of the combination of ingredients.


The Ingredients – should serve four

Olive oil or butter (about 25g)
A pinch of bicarbonate of soda
A small onion, or three/four shallots finely chopped
Two cloves of garlic, finely chopped
A teaspoon of grated ginger
Four or five small beetroot, roasted in the skins (in a sealed foil package for about an hour), peeled and diced into teeny, tiny pieces.
Risotto rice (Arborio, carnaroli, vialone nano) – about 250g
A small glass of white wine or white vermouth
Chicken or vegetable Stock (impossible to say how much you will need but most likely about a litre), in a pan on a gentle heat.
The darkest dark chocolate you can find, preferably 70%+ cocoa solids

The method
You all know how to make risotto, right? You’re going to find this incredibly patronising if you are talked through each step in the manner of a sports teacher humiliating the fat kid aren’t you? Oh well, here goes:

Put the onion and garlic in a large, heavy bottomed pan along with the olive oil or butter. Turn on the heat (low – see here for why) and add the bicarb (this helps soften the onion and bring out the flavours. I learnt why here). Fry gently for 10 minutes, or until you have a delicious pulpy mass of onion and garlic. Add the ginger and stir.

Crank up the heat. Pour in the rice, stir and cook off for about a minute to start it toasting. Add the wine or vermouth. It should sizzle and give off a fairly potent steam of near pure alcohol. Stir again (can you see a theme developing?). Tip in the beetroot. Admire the colour. Go on, you know you want to. Stir.

The stock (which is in a pan on a gentle heat, right?) can now be ladled in bit by bit. Stir. Stir some more. When almost all the stock has been absorbed add another ladle full. Stir. Keep stirring.

Repeat the above until the rice is cooked – usually about forty minutes. By this point your arm will aching and you should have worked up a considerable appetite with all that stirring.

Spoon onto a plate, grate the chocolate over the top. Admire the colour once more and eat.

One final point – risotto should be soft, it should spread evenly and slowly over the plate like a slew of molten lava running down a volcano. You shouldn’t be able to slice it.

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Apricot & Ginger Tarte Tatin

Every month over at the Leftover Queen there is a challenge to create a brand new dish from three specified ingredients. Apart from that one caveat, the imagination is free to run wild. This is my first entry so please be kind!

I had one of those great moments when I first saw the list of three ingredients for this month's Royal Foodie Joust. Usually, when presented with a task like this one I will be wracked with indecision and spend days agonising over the potential dishes, day and night.

If it is something really serious, like when I was auditioning for Masterchef, I cannot sleep and even when I close my eyes my busy mind refuses to stop cooking. It is like a demon chef projectionist is playing a fast moving series of images into my head. Think 'A Clockwork Orange' but with more risotto.

But not this time. Instead of being teased with indecision, the words 'tarte tatin' immediately burst into my head when I read that this months creation should contain apricots, ginger and butter.

My usual take on this classic French dish was inspired by a trip to Midsummer House and involves the addition of cinnamon, star anise and bay leaf. I've done this a couple of times before so I knew that spices worked and managed to cut through the rich sweetness of the pastry and caramel. Why not with apricots too?

These delicious little bites of juicy fruitiness are great on their own and maybe it is because they look a little like the sun but I can't eat one without thinking of a warm summer's evening, no matter what the weather outside. They are also great to cook with...

Apricot and Ginger Tarte Tatin
To serve two. Don't let the simplicity fool you - it belies a warm, summery and strangely complex burst of flavour.

4 apricots, skinned and halved
a small piece of ginger, about the size of the top half of your thumb, peeled
50g of caster sugar
50g of unsalted butter, cubed
200g puff pastry, rolled to about 1cm thickness

Preheat the oven to 200c. To peel the apricots, cut a small cross in the skin at the base of each one. Drop them into boiling water for 10-15 seconds then remove and run them under cold running water - you don't want them to cook, at least not yet. When cool the skins should peel off easily.


Melt the sugar in a heavy based, oven proof frying pan (or tarte tatin pan, if you have one) until it begins to brown. Add the butter and stir to make a caramel. Use a fine grater - a microplane is ideal - to grate the ginger into the mixture. Give it a good stir. The warm, spicy notes of the ginger should hit your nose straight away.

Place the apricot halves into the pan, flat side down and return to a medium heat. Cook them for about 3-4 minutes then turn them over and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Be careful because the caramel is freaking hot and from personal experience I can say that if you get it on your fingers, you know about it.


Remove the pan from the heat and lay the pastry over the top. It should be slightly too large for the pan meaning that the edges can be bunched up and tucked down the sides so that the fruit and caramel is neatly sealed in. Cook it for about 20 minutes until the pastry starts to brown. Turn it out onto an eagerly waiting plate (again, watch out for molten sugar trying to escape and singe your little pinkies) and serve with plain yoghurt if you're feeling healthy, or vanilla ice cream if you're feeling decadent.

To size up the competition or take part, visit the site