Beet Stuffed Beets - 1982

Roasted beets hollowed out and stuffed with Gruyere cheese and blanched beet greens. An awesome appetizer!

Ingredients

Small to medium sized beets Beet greens, washed well and sliced off stems 3-4 ounces Gruyere cheese, grated 1 Teaspoon lemon juice Salt and pepper

Shoot for medium-sized beets for this recipe. Too small and you won’t be able to stuff them. Too big and they’ll take forever to roast and be kind of unwieldy. Ideally these are a 2-3 bite appetizer.

You’ll need to roast the beets before you try stuffing them so slice them off the stems and cut the root parts off as well so they lay nice and flat on a baking sheet.

Bake these guys for 50-60 minutes at 350 degrees. They are done when a sharp knife can be pushed into the center with very little pressure. They should be nice and tender.

Dealing with the Greens

Cut off any of the really large stems and if there are any large ribs going down the center of the greens, cut them out as well. You want mainly greens.

Rinse these really well with cold water. For some reason beet greens attract dirt. Actually, they probably don’t attract dirt more than any other green, but I don’t think the producers really wash them well like they do lettuce. Probably because most people just throw them out.

Anyway, once you have them clean, dunk them in a large pot of simmering, salted water (1 Tablespoon of kosher salt per gallon). Keep them in the water for just about 20 seconds. You just want to lightly wilt the greens.

Then pull them out and immediately transfer them to a bowl with ice water. This will shock them and stop the cooking. It’ll also keep them really bright green which is nice.

Pull the greens out of the ice water and dry them off a bit on a paper towel. Then dice them up and mix them with the grated cheese and lemon juice. Season it a bit with a pinch of salt and pepper.

You don’t need anything else to make a really great filling.

This will be more filling than will fit in your beets most likely. Save the extra though. I made a quesadilla with the leftovers on day two that was pretty out of this world.

Stuffing the Beets

When the beets come out of the oven, they will be too hot to work with right away. Let them cool for about 10 minutes.

Then you need to peel them and core them. This is a messy job and your hands are gonna get a bit stained. Wear gloves if you’re worried about it, but I never do. The stain washes off pretty easily honestly as long as you don’t let it dry completely.

To peel beets, use a good vegetable peeler or a sharp paring knife. I like using a knife because the skins are pretty thick. Just run the knife around the edges and the skins should pull off pretty easily.

Then dig out a big well in the center of each beet. Save the part that you dig out for salads and stuff. You worked hard to roast these beets!

When is comes to stuffing these guys the only rule is stuff in as much as you possible can. When you can’t fit in any more stuffing, then they are stuffed.

It’s not rocket science.

Stick the beets back in the oven for another 10 minutes once they are stuffed just to melt the cheese and mingle all the flavors.

Gruyere cheese melts so perfectly in stuff like this. You have to love it. Other cheeses you could use though are swiss, goat, or maybe even a light cheddar.

Source and photo: Macheesmo – cooking with confidence

#1982 #stuffed #beets