*Ready to rock?*
Yup!
My name is Dan Kluger,
and we're at Loring Place
in Greenwich Village.
I chose the beet dish that we're going to do today because
when we look at the deconstruction,
I also want to talk about the inspiration.
And I'm always asked about,
"What's the inspiration behind a dish?"
And I thought this one was actually really kind of interesting.
Sitting on my deck
in the summer
having some cheese and crackers,
and my daughter made me
a whole wheat cracker
with some membrillo, quince paste,
and a piece of manchego.
And then she ran to the plant behind me
and put a piece of mint on it.
And, not even thinking about it, I ate it,
and all of a sudden was like,
"Wow, these things really work together."
It was really exciting.
So we're going to make our roasted beet salad
with granola
vivace cheese,
membrillo,
little bit of mint,
and lemon vinaigrette.
For this, we start with beets that we've roasted.
Dress it with a very simple dressing.
So the dressing for the beet salad is
a lemon vinaigrette
with a little bit of vanilla-infused olive oil.
Take olive oil, add in vanilla bean.
There's often vanilla in quince, in membrillo,
Again, a very good pairing.
So rather than put it in there,
we took it out and put it in the vinaigrette.
And we're going to bring it up to a simmer.
Let it sit for a few hours.
Strain it out,
and then we just add in lemon juice and olive oil.
And using a hand blender,
just zap it together.
Here we're using baby beets.
We have red, golden, and candy cane.
And we gently toss these with a little bit of salt.
The beets line the bottom of the bowl.
There should be just enough dressing
that they're well-coated
but not swimming in vinaigrette.
We have some chopped jalapeño.
And so, you get heat with some bites
but not every bite. It's just mixed in.
Some homemade quince paste.
I really like quince.
I love the perfume of it.
And I love that it really signifies late fall.
Going to Spain and having it on everything
made me really always want to make my own.
Homemade membrillo that's peeled
and cooked with water, sugar, and a little bit of lemon
until very tender.
And then we let it set up overnight,
and dice it up.
And then we have this lovely vivace cheese
from Cato Corner.
It's a cow's milk cheese,
and it has a nice sharpness.
It's similar to provolone
with like, a little bit of emmental to it.
I'm thinking of this cheese, crackers, membrillo thing.
So this inspiration, it started with that.
And from there, we top it with a little bit of granola.
And this granola has
pumpkin seeds, flax seeds,
puffed quinoa, puffed cracked wheat,
some candied gingered cashews,
and a little bit of star anise and smoked paprika.
And all these things are toasted and then mixed together
to create this slightly sweet but very savory granola.
And it's really about crunch,
this idea of this cracker,
and then kind of playing on top of that and adding to it.
I love a lot of herbs.
I put herbs in almost anything,
and here we're using mint.
Finish with a little bit of lemon zest.
And that's our roasted beet salad.
Just a delicious vegetable. (laughs)
