Dining in Denver - Part 2 - That Beet Salad

I was in Denver recently and ate at the marvelous Rioja. Though I had only one bite of the roasted beet salad, I kept dreaming of it...and of recreating it in my kitchen.

Here's the description from the restaurant's menu: Roasted Candy Striped Beet Salad: cucumber mint vinaigrette, snow drop goat cheese, crispy beet chips, pickled red onion, micro beets, mint syrup. To create the salad at home, I began by deconstructing the ingredients.

1) Roasted Candy Striped Beets. There were none in my local supermarket, so I settled for three regular jewel toned beets and roasted them as I typically do.

2) Snow Drop Goat Cheese. Nothing exactly like this in my local store, so I used goat cheese sprinkles.

3) Pickled Red Onion: I headed over to Simply Recipes for a great pickled red onion recipe and adapted based on what was in my pantry...which I didn't write down. Pickling red onions involves sliced red onions, sugar, white vinegar and some combination of spices: cinnamon, allspice, cumin, garlic, and so on. I'm pretty sure I threw in some organic oregano, too.

• In one pot, blanch onions in boiling water 2 minutes, drain.
• In another pot, combine vinegar, sugar and spices. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer five minutes.
• Add onions, summer one minute.
• Transfer to a glass jar, let cool, and keep in the fridge. I simply poured mine into a glass bowl, let cool on the stove, covered with plastic, and put into the fridge.

4) Cucumber Vinaigrette: I searched online for a cucumber salad dressing, but all I found was a lot of recipes for cucumbers in vinegar - and that's not what I was looking for. I ended up with something along these lines...

• 2 cucumbers
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• red white vinegar

Pushing the cucumber vinaigrette through cheese cloth.

I peeled and seeded the cucumber, then chopped, and pureed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and red white vinegar. I pushed the pulverized mixture through two layers of cheese cloth and came up with a reasonable facsimile. Next time I won't use the olive oil as it's too pronounced. Still, not bad.


5) Micro Greens: Definitely nothing like these around here, so I used chopped organic charge from my weekly Swier Family Farm allotment.

6) Mint Syrup:  Mint syrup was a breeze to make. There are many variations available online, and I used this combination:

• 2 cups water
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 bunch mint

Mint and Sugar

Throw it all in a pot, boil until slightly thickened. Cool, remove the mint, and store in the fridge. Just try to not drink it all before you get to the salad. Save and use in various other things like mint juleps, tea, or drizzle over ice cream with chocolate syrup.

7) Crispy Beet Chips: I didn't get these made, and, in fact, completely forgot about them. They seem pretty easy, though - extremely thin sliced beets roasted in salt and olive oil until crispy.

The result? Satisfying.

Beet Salad with Mint Syrup, Pickled Onions, Cucumber Vinaigrette, Goat Cheese

I really wish I could have found a different type of beets as the jewel-toned beets have a stronger "beety" flavor than the more delicate candy-striped. I hope I can find candy-striped beets sometime this summer. The chard for the micro-beet greens worked, although I suppose their flavor is also more pronounced; maybe I'll try this again and use the beet tops as salad. Regardless, I'll call the re-creation a success. Taking the essence of beet mingling with cucumber and mint, along with the crunch of the chard has a decidedly summer twist and certainly echoes the one bite of salad I had in Denver.