Make pink-stemmed beetroot leaves the star of your autumn dinner with this comforting gratin
The last of the spring-sown beetroot are harvested in November, having swollen to the size of Bramley apples.
We make a few jars of pickled beetroot, sliced and suspended raw (so the beetroot stays crunchy) in a mix of homemade cider vinegar, honey and bay leaves to line a store-cupboard shelf and last us through the winter. Rather than composting the tangled pile of leftover magenta and pink-stemmed beetroot leaves, we bake them into a comforting gratin for dinner.
Preheat the oven to 170°C. Bring a pan of water to the boil and add the beetroot stems. Allow them to cook for one minute, then add the leaves, cook for a further minute and drain. Next, peel and slice the potatoes very thinly (so that you can almost see through them). Then mix the cream and milk together in a jug and stir in the mustard.
Pour over the cream mixture, scatter the top with breadcrumbs and a little more grated Cheddar and bake in the oven for 1½ hours until the potatoes are cooked through and the top is crisp and golden, perhaps with a little cream bubbling to the surface.
Serve piping hot. This is lovely with a simple watercress salad on the side, plus a few crunchy slices of pickled raw beetroot to cut through the richness of the creamy potatoes.
The Seasonal Table
Kathy and Tom combine running their Somerset smallholding with full-time jobs, and also find time to write a blog called The Seasonal Table – a journal of slow food and slow living.
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Gill Meller
