This weekend I managed to make three different vegetable-focussed dishes, a rarity under my wing. OK, so one of the veggie dishes really is more of a sideshow, but even then it's not often meat plays a shadowing role in my cooking. First on Saturday night I made myself some braised nappa cabbage with slivered Chinese sausage (a locally available substitute to locally unavailable Chinese ham). Then on Sunday I decided to do something more Western in taste.
After my questionable first attempt at making roasted vegetables, I decided to try that again this weekend. This time I used carrots, beets, red onion, new red potatoes and garlic, and I added a bit more olive oil and salt compared to last time as well as some ground pepper and a splash of balsamic vinegar. This time the flavouring was more acceptable, and the beets definitely helped! The sweetness of the beets matched well with the unique sourness of the balsamic vinegar, which was well absorbed by the onions. Not only were my veggies not bland this time, they weren't burnt at all, only slightly caramelized. At least I've got that one down pat now.
I recalled somewhere that beet stalks were edible, so why throw away those when they can be just as palatable as the beet root itself? Following my sister's advice I sauted the stalks in some olive oil and chopped garlic, and I almost let it burn on the stove, but fortunately it was only slightly tanned. It turns out that the stalks tasted alright, the leaves having soaked up a bit of the garlic flavour while the stalks remained nice and firm. Both the beet stalks and roasted vegetables went very well with my pork chop that night.
Now if only beets actually grew more stalks on each root...
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