Growing up with an Asian diet, I first came across beets as a teenager in the salad bar of a really bad Chinese buffet that soon after shuttered its doors. The beets were pickled, strongly tasting of vinegar, and something I very much regretted trying.

Years later I would come across British field to plate enthusiast, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, on an episode of River Cottage, re-acquainting himself with pickled beets. He, a former chef, lamented that the majority of his fellow countrymen's first and last taste of beets came from bottles. A bottle in hand, he retrieved a slice, took a bite, and demonstrated, rather viscerally, why. Then, he proceeded to challenge his restaurant's chefs to to come up with novel ways to prepare freshly grown beet root (beets in the British vernacular). Together, they innovated candied baby beets, beet root ice cream, and beet root brownies.

Last summer, with beets newly in season, I was fortunate enough to try a chocolate beet cake at a local Ottawa vegetarian restaurant, the Table (1230 Wellington St. W).

Chocolate Beet Cake
Made from organic beets, spelt flour, semi-sweet chocolate chips, baking power, baking soda, olive oil, and vanilla, it reignited my curiosity. Quite the revelation, pairing dark chocolate and beets, I would have appreciated the beet root shredded much finer. It had the texture of a carrot cake, holding the raisins of course.

Here is my take on Whittingstall's beet root brownies, taking from my lessons learned at the Table:

1. Red beet's sweetness complements well dark chocolate.
2. Chocolate cake or brownies are not carrot cake, so the beets need to incorporate well into the batter, almost disappearing, contributing flavour not texture

Beet Root Brownies

Recipe

Three Bunches of Baby Beets, Costing $5 from the Local Farmers' Market

Healthy Beet Greens, cut from the Baby Beets

Mis en Place

Finely Shredded Roasted Beets

Sugar and Egg Mixture, Whipped until Lightened

Batter After Gently Incorporating the Flour Baking Powder Mixture

Brownies after 40 Minutes Baking and Tested

Cooled and De-Panned

Done

Served

What you'll need:

• 228 g semi-sweet chocolate (originally called for 250 g)
• 232 g butter (originally called for 250 g)
• 230 g granulated white sugar (originally called for 250 g)
• 3 large eggs
• 230 g finely shredded roasted beets (originally called for 250 g)
• 140 g cake flour (originally called for 150 g)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• One pinch (approx. 1/2 tsp) of kosher salt.

There are two reasons I modified Whittingstall's recipe from the Channel 4 website. Firstly, I discovered that 2 sticks of butter (all I had) weighed 232 g, forcing me to re-adjust the other weights. Secondly, the recipe called for self rising flour. I had none, so I had to make my own.

Also, there is no traditional 20x30 cm brownie pan in the foodiePrints kitchen. However, we have a round cake tin with a diameter of 23 cm. Taking into account its surface area (415.46 square cm), the cake tin is narrower than intended (600 square cm), so the amount of leavening and cooking time had to be adjusted. My brownies would be taller.

Regarding the semi-sweet chocolate, if using blocks of chocolate, shave the chocolate using a serrated bread knife and a mallet. The chocolate needs to melt evenly. Else some will scorch during heating, before everything melts. Scorching, essentially overcooking chocolate, causes it to separate into its individual components, producing somewhat burnt flavours.

Prep:

1. Take a little over a dozen baby beets, because they are more tender than mature beets, and roast them for an hour in a sealed alluminium foil package with a splash of canola oil in an oven preheated to 350F. The baking process softens the beets and loosens their skins.
2. Remove them from the oven and let them cool until warm, but handle-able.
3. Take a tea towel that you don't mind being stained red purple and gently rub off the skins of the beets and set them aside.
4. When cooled, shred them using the fine tooth side of a box grater. Be careful! In all seriousness, should you cut yourself, you will not notice until cleanup.
5. Weigh out however much shredded beets is necessary for the recipe. This is the beauty of a mass-based baking recipe. They scale up or down well.
6. Line your cake tin bottom with parchment paper, cut to fit.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F
2. Float a metal mixing bowl or sauce pan over a larger pot of boiling water on an element set to medium low and gently melt the butter. This setup is called a double boiler. It is used to gently heat ingredients using temperatures no higher than the boiling point of water. Tip: Cut the butter into pieces for quick melting.
3. Once the butter is melted, remove the bowl or pan from the heat and add the chocolate chips, letting the residual heat melt them. Not all the chips will melt.
4. Return the butter and chocolate mixture to the boiling water sparingly to completely melt the chocolate, stirring often until it forms a uniform suspension. Once the chocolate completely melts, the resultant mixture will take on a sheen. Set it aside.
5. Add the white sugar to 3 eggs in a separate mixing bowl and beat with an electric egg beater or stiff balloon whisk (my favourite) until emulsified. The mixture will lighten.
6. Add the chocolate and butter to the sugar and egg mixture, again beating the mixture until inform.
7. Add the finely shredded beet root to the mixture.
8. Sift in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Sifting even pre-sifted flour aerates it, thus permitting it to incorporate easier with wet ingredients. Because wheat flour and water easily develops gluten, over mixing a cake batter produces a "chew" more sought after in bread recipes. In our case, the brownie will toughen.
9. Gently fold the flour into the mixture until it just combined
10. Let the mixture rest for 3-5 minutes.
11. Pour it into the prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes at 350F.
12. After 20 minutes the top will begin to crust over. Check for done-ness every 5 minutes thereafter by inserting a bamboo skewer into the center of the brownies. When it comes out with only a small number of moist crumbs, the brownies are done. For me, it took my oven 40 minutes to bake the brownies.
13. Remove the brownies from the oven and allow them to cool for 5 minutes.
14. De-pan to a flat surface and allow to cool completely.
15. When cool, cut the brownies with a straight edge knife and serve.

One urban culinary legend has it that brownies were first baked when a cook neglected to add leavening to a chocolate cake.

The beet root brownies that came from this recipe were indeed dense, moist, and highlighted the unusually good pairing of beet root sweet and dark chocolate.

I brought the freshly baked batch to work. There, I enjoyed greatly letting my colleagues and former co-workers taste the brownies before telling them that almost a dozen baby beets went into the batch. Everyone thought the magical ingredient was fruit.

Next, I plan to bake a better chocolate beet cake...

After a brief trip to the ByWard market yesterday, I discovered that it is mid-October and the fall harvest is still with us, even with the evenings growing more frigid. I passed by the same vendor who sold me the beets I used to make a wonderful salad several weeks ago. His stand was still replete with baby beets. He was having difficulty trying to convince a family to try his wares. I stepped in, purchased another dozen and mentioned that roasted they go wonderfully well with cooked barely, red onion, and feta in a salad. He replied, "Perhaps it's the cook and not my beets." I looked at him then the family and said, "It's the beets." "You will find none fresher or sweeter." Then, I went to find a supply of local plum tomatoes.

The recipe for the salad was recommended to me by a tweep who goes by the handle @kaitli. A true foodie, she found me a novel way to use up the pearl barley I had picked up from the Wellington Herb and Spice (1310 Wellington Street West) in the Wellington Village.

The recipe hails from thekitchn.com, under "fall kitchen cure."

Here is my take:

Baby Beet and Barley Salad

Recipe

Five Dolla's of Local Produce

Uncooked Barley and Roasted Beets

Sweating a Chopped Red Onion

Salad, Just Assembled

What you'll need:

• 18-20 baby beets (tips on how to pick good beets)
• One red onion
• Approximately a cup of pearled barley (NOT instant barley)
• 4-5 strands of green onions (aka: scallions)
• 1 1/2 tbps lemon juice
• 1 tpsb olive oil

Why baby beets? Baby beets may be less sweet, but I find them much more tender and better for salads. More mature beets can be substituted, but will need to be cut into smaller pieces.

Method:

1. Don't bother peeling raw beets, it is a somewhat risky proposition. Instead, drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper and roast in a pre-heated 375F until a fork can penetrate each beet somewhat easily (approximately 50 minutes to an hour). This loosens the skins.
2. Then, take a tea towel, preferably one you don't mind staining red, and rub off the skins of the beets while they are still warm from the oven but handle-able. Work carefully as red beet juice stains everything a crimson purple.
3. Set the beets aside to cool and quarter them into wedges. The salad will be served at room temperature.
4. While the beets are roasting, bring 2 cups of salted water up to a boil on medium heat and deposit the barley into it. I find a pinch or two of salt to 2 cups of water will do. The salt will season the barley.
5. After adding the barely, bring the water back up to a simmer, turn the heat down to medium low and simmer for 45 minutes. Monitor the pot closely, it may require adding some water to keep the barley submerged. When cooked, the barley will soften. Cooking longer will soften the barely further. For this salad, I prefer a risotto-style texture.
6. Afterward, finely chop one large red onion and sweat at medium heat in a metal skillet (or heavy bottomed pot) with a splash of oil and a pinch of salt. The sweating will concentrate flavours.
7. When softened and any liquid cooked off, remove and let cool.
8. Chop the scallion for garnish.
9. Place the oil and lemon juice into a container and mix to emulsify. This is essentially a dressing.
10. Gently assemble everything together and serve. The beets will more than likely bleed, colouring the barely.
11. If you fancy a savory and sharp taste, crumble several 2" cubes of feta into a serving, mix, and enjoy.

This salad is a wonderful mixture of fresh flavours and textures: sweet and earthy from the beets, crunch from the onion, fresh green flavours from the scallions, bright flavours from the lemon, and a pleasant chew from the barley. It all goes together well.

BTW, this salad makes a good accompaniment to lamb, especially a lamb stew.