5 March 08 re: beet questions

Drew:

The beets you show in your Indian beet recipe look very black after roasting, but your roasting instructions don't mention scraping off any of the blackness. So I guess it is good to eat?

m-c:

Oops, yes, the skin is fine to eat. The color gets amazingly dark, but if you've oiled the beets well and taken them out of the oven when they're cooked through, the skins make excellent eating. (That's true for lots of other roasted vegetables too.)

Jayann:

Every recipe I've ever read for roasting beets says to wrap them in foil before you put them in the oven.

m-c:

Yes, other people do tend to say that, but I would call foil-wrapping beets in the oven steaming, not roasting. It's a non-snobby way of cooking en papillote (ahn pa pee YOAT, in paper). Try cooking beets with and without foil some time, see which way you like better.

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