GREEN BEANS, ROAST BEETS, LABNEH AND CARAMELISED BUTTER
Serves 4
This cooked salad has a little bit of everything, roasty, sweet, creamy, spicy, crisp and the indefinably moreish quality of caramelised butter. Crunchy chickpeas, beets, onions and pistachios raise the fibre content of this dish in the most elegant way, and nigella seeds are said to calm the antisocial side effects of too many pulses.
300g (11oz) raw beetroots
Olive oil, for drizzling
Couple of pinches of sea salt
300g (11oz) green beans
1 small red onion, halved, then thinly sliced
150g (5oz) Labneh (see page 210)
1 x quantity Spicy Crunchy Chickpeas recipe (see page 221)
50g (2oz) raw pistachio nuts, lightly crushed
1 teaspoon nigella seeds
2 tablespoons Caramelised Butter (see page 227)
1/2 lemon, quartered
Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4. Scrub the beetroots and trim off any really rough bits of skin, slice into quarters (or more if large) and put into a mixing bowl. Drizzle with a little olive oil, sprinkle over the salt, turn to coat and then tip onto a baking sheet. Roast for about an hour until tender to the point of a knife. Set aside to cool until just warm.
Steam the green beans until just tender, refresh under cold water, then drain and pile onto a large serving plate. Cover the red onion slices in tepid water for a few minutes, then drain and refresh in cold water. Scatter them over the green beans. Cut the beetroot quarters in half, scatter over the plate and place rough pieces of labneh over the vegetables. If you have time, leave the salad for 10 minutes for the beet colour to bleed into the labneh.
Scatter the crunchy chickpeas, crushed pistachios and nigella seeds over the salad just before you eat. Drizzle with warm caramelised butter and nestle the pieces of lemon into the salad.
Eat with Teff and Sesame Pancakes (see page 122) or flatbread, Broad Bean Hummus (see page 120) and steamed greens or a salad of bitter greens.