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Beet Greens with Young Beets
Select young beets when they are not larger than an English walnut; the tops will then be just the right age to be tender and sweet. Wash thoroughly in several waters and examine each leaf for lurking worms. If one water through which it is passed is strongly salted, it will cause his wormship to leave the leaf at once. Be careful not to break the tender skin of the beet, or the rich red juice will be lost in cooking.
Put them in enough slightly salted boiling water to well cover them and boil quickly until tender; it should require from thirty to forty-five minutes. Take them out of the kettle when done and plunge the beets only, not the tops, into very cold water, and the skins will very readily rub off with the fingers. Drain the greens and cut them up, not too fine; add a plenty of melted butter, a tablespoonful of vinegar or lemon juice, and pepper and salt. Mix lightly with a silver fork, arrange them on ashallow, hot dish or platter, cut the beets in halves and lay them in a border around the greens. To make the dish more ornamental the beets may be alternated with slices of hardboiled egg, and a mayonnaise or boiled dressing passed with or poured over it.
A single-pot treatment of beets and their tops, still one of the best uses for a bunch of young beets. A few points of period practice need translating.
- Beet size"No larger than an English walnut" means roughly 1 to 1.5 inches across — the size sold as baby beets. Larger roots will not cook through in the same time as their leaves, so if your beets are golf-ball size or bigger, cook tops and roots separately.
- Cooking timeThirty to forty-five minutes suits beets boiled whole with skins intact. Genuinely walnut-sized beets are often tender in 20 to 25 minutes; test with a skewer rather than trusting the clock. The greens will be well past bright green by then, which is what the recipe intends.
- Keeping the colorThe instruction not to break the skin is the hinge of the dish. Leave root and about an inch of stem attached and do not trim the tail; any cut lets the pigment bleed into the water and leaves the beets pale.
- Salt-water worm bathA brief soak in heavily salted water does drive out small insects, and is still standard for garden greens. Rinse afterward or the greens will be over-salted.
- Silver forkSilver was commonly specified for acidic dishes, apparently to avoid the discoloration or metallic taste associated with iron or steel; the recipe itself gives no reason. Any non-reactive utensil is fine; stainless steel causes no problem.
- Dressing amountsNo quantities are given for the butter. For the tops of one large bunch, 2 to 3 tablespoons melted butter and the tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice specified will dress them without sogginess.
- YieldOne good bunch of young beets with tops serves two to three as a side dish. Doubling is straightforward as long as the pot is wide enough that the beets sit in a single layer.