Pam Lloyd PR Beetroot Recipes (27th January 2011)

Take a leaf out of the Americans’ book and create a Halloween pud for trick or treating kids. They’ll love its sticky blood-red innards

American style beetroot pie

Serves 4

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 45-50 minutes

You’ll need:

250g shortcrust pastry

325g plain cooked beetroot

3 eggs

75g soft brown sugar

2tsp ground mixed spice

½ tsp ground allspice (optional)

½ tsp ground ginger (optional)

250ml double cream

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 200˚C/Gas Mark 6.

Roll out the pastry and use it to line a 23cm loose bottomed pie tin. Line with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans. Bake blind for 20 minutes.

While the pastry is baking, prepare the filling by pureeing the beetroot along with the eggs in a food processor.

In a small saucepan add the sugar, all the spices and cream and bring slowly up to a simmering point. Pour into the food processor and mix thoroughly with the beetroot puree.

Remove the pastry case from the oven and reduce the temperature to 180˚C/Gas Mark 4.

Pour the filling carefully into the pastry case and bake for around 25-30 minutes. The edge should be puffed up a little and the centre will still be a touch wobbly. Allow to cool and chill in the fridge. Serve with crème fraiche.

Recipe from lovebeetroot.co.uk

Bonkers about beetroot

Beetroot is a very local product – most of the UK’s crop is grown in Cambridgeshire.The fertile soils of the fens offer the perfect combination of soil, sun and water to produce a sweet, full-flavoured root. Beetroots need a lot of sunshine to get the sweet taste they are renowned for.

The crops are grown from seed that is sown in May and the beetroot is ready to harvest from early July onwards. Once dug up, the beetroot is packed straight from the field. This continues throughout the growing season, which finishes in October.

Beetroot is one of the most environmentally friendly crops, rarely needing treatment with pesticides.

G’s Marketing, based near Ely, has a beetroot factory close to the main growing region and employing up to 130 people in the summer season. G’s grow some of their own British beetroot, but most is grown by farmers and beetroot specialists Greens of Soham.