Saving the Harvest: Raspberry Beets - Homemade Raspberry Vinegar

Fancy Beets sautéed in butter and dressed with raspberry vinegar.

This dish is dinner party worthy.  It is a little more trouble than just roasting beets.  A friend in Boston who is an excellent cook made it for us once.  She is an attorney who also studied at the Sorbonne and lived in Paris.  It was one of those dinners that you keep remembering after you’ve left.  She said that the recipe was from Julia Child but I could never find it. You shred fresh beets (an easy task if you have a food processor).   Then they are sautéed with butter and finally dressed with raspberry vinegar. 

 

sliced raspberry beets with currents

If you are too lazy to get out the food processor and clean it afterwards (like me) or don’t have one, you can slice the beets and proceed with the recipe.  I also once added currants (see pictures).  There is a picture of the shredded beets at the end of this post.  I used beets from our farmer’s market.  Keep them in a cool dark place to use for weeks.

sliced golden raspberry beets with red currents

Ingredients:

-        1 1b of uncooked organic fresh beets - peeled

-        4 tb of organic butter ( I use salted butter) or 3 tb butter plus 1 tb org. olive oil

-        Sea salt to taste

-        ¼ cup homemade organic raspberry vinegar

Shred the beets (easy in a food processor).  Melt the butter (and add the oil) in a flat (fry) pan and then add the beets, salt them and sauté them over medium heat until tender.   Turn off the heat and add the raspberry vinegar to the beets and stir well.  Taste to make sure they are salty enough. 

Organic butter is available in bulk at Costco – it keeps well in the freezer.  If you would like to use less fat, then steam the beets by cooking with a few tablespoons of water (and maybe 1 tablespoon of butter).  Sauté the beets in a little butter for a few minutes then add the water and put a lid over the pan to steam them.  

 

Shredded raspberry beets.  Worth the extra effort!

Raspberry Vinegar:

We always have ever bearing raspberries.  Even if you don’t have much sun, you can plant them in your yard and you can have fresh raspberries from August to early November or the first frost.  For raspberry vinegar I just put some organic vinegar in a pan and heat it to a boil, turn it off, put some raspberries in (as many as you can spare), smash them and add a little organic sugar (we buy this in bulk at Costco).  Organic white vinegar (available at Whole Foods) is also very inexpensive and can be used for fruit vinegars of all kinds. 

Ingredients:

-        1 cup organic vinegar (white or apple cider are good choices)

-        ¼ to ½ cup organic raspberries (frozen organic raspberries are easy to find and work well)

-        1 tablespoon organic sugar or honey

Cooking

Heat the vinegar and sugar to a boil.  Turn off the heat and poor in the raspberries.  If you are using frozen raspberries, then do not turn off the stove, but cook  for a minute or so until thawed. Smash the berries into the vinegar with a potato masher or fork.  You can strain it if you like (sometimes I just use it with the pieces intact).  Refrigerate the vinegar when not using it.  If you are giving the vinegar as a gift, filter the raspberry pieces out and then reserve a few intact raspberries to add after bottling.  AGAIN – KEEP REFRIGERATED.