Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The most disgusting recipe ever?

My significantly better half’s mother rang seeking advice on how best to reproduce a dish they both had in Uzbekistan on their holiday last year – the one they had while I looked after the children for three weeks, got them through the change to daylight saving and attended all the end-of-term activities including a poetry recital, sports awards and a concert. Not that I mind.

The dish my mother-in-law – who is an exceptional cook – was intending to replicate was a salad of beetroot and apple they’d had in Tashkent or similar. What else might it need, she wondered. She was not seeking advice from me, I hasten to add, but from her daughter who is also an exceptional cook. While they conferred I googled and found this recipe. It is a salad of beetroot and apple but doesn’t look Uzbek to me. It’s not just the sesame seeds. It’s not just the “ready processed beetroot”, the shop-bought French dressing, the carrot or the parsley. No, it’s that other. . . thing in there. Ewww.

This recipe, needless to say, is from England.
Beetroot & Apple Salad
Ingredients - Serves 4
4 Small Cooked Beetroot
2 Tablespoons Toasted Sesame Seeds
3 Green Apples
1 Carrot
2 Pineapple Rings - optional
1 Large Sprig Parsley
8 Tablespoons French Dressing

Method
Toast the sesame seeds either on a tray in a hot oven or in a heavy pan on top of the stove until they go light brown, be careful not to burn them.
Wash, core and slice the apples into thin wedges.
We have presumed that you will use ready processed beetroot, the sort that come in vacuum packs. If you are using fresh beetroot just scrub them and boil in plenty of water to which you have added a couple of tablespoons of vinegar. This helps to keep the colour from bleeding out. When they are cooked let them cool, the skin will peel off in your fingers.
Chop the beetroot into small dice. Cut the pineapple into small wedges.
Peel the carrot and grate finely.
Wash, drain and finely chop the parsley.
Mix all together well and then add eight tablespoons of French Dressing, either shop bought, or as below.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yuk.

My sister-in-law's beetroot & apple requires just those two ingredients, grated.

homepaddock said...

And that comment requires the word salad after apple.

Stephen Stratford said...

Heh. There is a recipe at http://ashy-macbean.com/salads/beetroot-apple-salad.htm which is the real deal:

Ingredients

2 cooked beetroots
1 apple

Peel everything. Grate everything. Mix everything together.

Mrs QUQ said...

Uzbek cuisine had its challenges, but this was definitely not among them!

Unknown said...

Yuk. Which applies to anything with the word 'salad' in the title.

In the words of Red Foreman, on tonight's rerun of That 70s Show, 'this isn't food - this is what food eats.'

bk drinkwater said...

If you really want a bad recipe, then often you need look no further than the packaging of your ingredients. (That is, if you buy your ingredients, rather than grow or kill them.)

I went through a phase of cooking only off packet recipes. I did this as literally as I am able. I can be pedantic.

The packaging for a brand of pasta that shall remain nameless (hint: not club, heart, or spade) had a bad typo. Barely able to convince my flatmates that I did know how much beef stock was needed, at least to the nearest order of magnitude or two, and that I felt compelled to put in rather a lot anyway because the packet told me to, I was unable to convince them that I wasn't trying to kill them. The force-feeding may not have helped.

They refused to eat anything I cooked until the phase was over.

homepaddock said...

No need to cook the beetroot or peel the apple.

Peel and grate the raw beetroot, wash the apple, can be peeled but doesn't have to be, grate and mix with beetroot.

Anonymous said...

Those are your children, right? And you are expecting congratulations for looking after them?
Let me guess, you're a bloke....

Stephen Stratford said...

BK: that's very funny. But I gave up the force-feeding months ago.

HP: indeed. Simpler the better.

Anon: yes I am a bloke - maybe my name offers a clue? - and yes the children are mine. It wasn't the looking after them that I was being good about not minding, it was the attending all the end-of-term activities. Which involved an awful lot of other people's children.

sonja yelich said...

yukky is this::
Copper Pennies - take one bottle of tomato sauce and tip it into a yukky bowl. Cut 4 carrots into rounds. Add to tomato sauce. Chill. Lasts for 4 months. Yukky, yukky, yukky. My neighbour at the bach makes it - & I have threatened my 4 children with it.

Stephen Stratford said...

Sonja: that is indeed yukky, yukky, yukky. You have comprehensively out-yukkied me.

Phil said...

Ya can't beet a good root