Persian Thanksgiving Side Dishes: Recipe 4
I am so excited to present to you the 4th recipe in our Thanksgiving side dishes series! I saw this recipe in the LA Times‘ food section a couple months ago and it was love at first sight. The recipe comes from “The Book of New Israeli Food: A Culinary Journey” by Janna Gur. I simply feel that I HAVE to share this recipe with you because Persians not only have a love affair with pomegranate, but also with beets.
When I first saw the recipe, I thought the combination was unusual, yet I was extremely intrigued because I simply love pomegranate, as you may have perhaps noticed, and of course I love beets as well. Thus far I have made this recipe three times and it got rave reviews each time! I am so excited to share this with you!
I personally see this recipe more as a relish than a salad. One thing is for sure though, it is going to taste amazingly good with Turkey.
A couple of things before we go ahead. I have slightly changed the recipe from its original version. I roasted the beets, because I think they taste better when roasted, and I omitted the olive oil. Also the measurements are slightly different because the beets at our local market were all different in size, I bought what you see in the pictures and figured that two small ones make up a medium one! Also, the pomegranate that I bought, came out to a cup and half. I thought it was a good amount for a group of people. The good thing about this relish is that you can make the beets and pomegranates the day before. Place them in different bags and store in the fridge until you are ready to put it all together.
Ingredients
3-4 medium beets
1 1/2 cup of pomegranate seeds
1/2 cilantro
2 dried red chile peppers
2 tbsp pomegranate paste
3-4 tbsp lemon juice
salt
Wash beets and scrub with a vegetable brush. Cut the top and bottom ends. Place in a cookie sheet. If you are a regular reader, you know I am all about finding ways to do less dishes…I lined my small cookie sheet with foil. Drizzle the beets with olive oil and massage all over the beets, including the top and bottoms. Roast in the oven for about one hour at 400° or until a fork easily goes in.
Peel pomegranate and place seeds in a bowl. Do yourself a favor and use gloves!
When beets are done, let them cool completely. The skin comes right off when they are nice and cool.
Peel beets and make sure that you use gloves for this portion as well.
Small dice the beets as shown above. Isn’t the color amazing? It just took my breath away in the sun. Such a gorgeous ruby red!
Crush red chile peppers and mix with pomegranate paste and lemon juice. Season with salt. The original recipe says to set the dressing aside for 15 minutes. I would say let the dressing sit for at least an hour. This will give the chile pepper some time to spice up the dressing. The end result for the dressing should be an amazing combination of sweet, tangy, and mildly spicy!
Add beets, cilandro, and dressing to pomegranate seeds, and mix well.
When I looked up the cookbook from which this recipe comes from I found this interview with the author Janna Gur, with whom I might be a little in love with right now!! She even mentions about Persian food! I really enjoyed watching it because it was all about food and I learned something new: there is a difference between Jewish food and Israeli food.
I would love to know if you made this relish and how you liked it! Please don’t be shy about leaving comments!!
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
Looks ruby happy and delicious…Yum, yum…
Thank you for visiting Nonna!!
i will try this for sure, it looks so yummy.
i always boil the beets and add a touch of sugar . both ways are good.
Have a happy thanksgiving.
Now this one I really have to try. IB (=Iranian Boyfriend) is constantly raving about beets and why-don’t-we-use-them-more-in-our-cooking. As he is also crazy about pomegranates, this must be a winner. I’ll let you know how I get on!
Meanwhile, I’m off to warmer climates for a few days. Work brings me to Oman, a place I’ve never been before. Am so looking forward to trying new food, and hopefully there is a hole in the schedule so I can squeeze in a Spice Shopping Spree
Happy Thanksgiving!
Maryam, I would love to hear what you thought of the it!
Tine, I would love to hear what IB thinks of this. I can’t imagine him not being impressed with you, seriously!! Have a great time in Oman. I want to hear all about your food experience, send me an email when you can!
my dear iranian chef,
your weblog is amazing …..i wish you all the best.
regards
nafiseh
malaysia
Dear Nafiseh, thank you for your kind words!
Beets! Something for Polish-Iranian family
We, Polish like it a lot! About Jewish cuisine – it is based on the Central European products, where the Jews were numerous before the WWII and Israeli cuisine it is cuisine of the Middle East.
I love both pomegranates and beets but I’ve never had them together. Your version sounds delicious. I’ll have to make it.
Mirka,
I hope you give this relish/salad a try!
Indeed, that’s what I found out through the interview with the cookbook author. I never gave it much thought before…
Azita, you must must must make it! It’s soo good!
I love the recipe and will try it. I also loved the video and the lady you fell in love with! I fell in love with her too! I wish people from the Middle East finally transcend the religious and historic hatred through food.
Maryam, wouldn’t that be a wonderful change in our hostile world??!!
Ok so eating this recipe makes your complexion fair..white or lighter?
Iranian princess, I don’t know what it does to your complexion, but I know what it does to your tastes buds, it makes them go googoo gaga!
Chef,
This one! was a real treat. I had some problems along the way (peeling the beets made me angry), but the end result was plain lovely! I had to modify a bit though, since i didn’t have any grenade puree. I first opted for some really old and unused dried grenadeproduct. <Discarded that and found – eureka – grenade lavashak or leather. I dissolwed some of this in hot water and look, there was pure!
So, to sum things up: the dish, thanks to the genius, well rested [b]dressing[/b] with pulbiberflakes instead of mortared red chili turned out soooooooooo good.
It almost equalled my first homemade version of georgian adzhika!
Cheers from Sweden
I love this recipe! Every time I make it, it is a hit. Everyone loves it. Thanks for the great idea!
This is such an incredible idea! I do a beet week or a beet party every now and again and this is FOR SURE going on the roster for next time. Wonderful! This makes me so happy!
Zom, you will fall in love with this recipe!!!
I made this salad for my friends few weeks ago, they loved it so much I will make it again for tomorrow ( Thanksgiving ) dinner for 40 guests.
I know they will love it. Thanks for sharing your good food with us.I love your website very much.
Have a nice Thanksgiving!
Tabi, so happy to hear that everyone liked the salad. It’s awesome!! Happy Thanksgiving to you too and thank you for your readership!!!!!
Hello, I am very happy to find your recipe!
I recently bought the pomegranate paste and was wondering what could I use it for… I am also running a 30 salads challenge currently and hope I could include this recipe as well? I might change it a bit though…
Great blog! Regards!
OMG it looks perfect! I got pomegranate and beetroot at home. Tomorrow chiken shashlik will be served with this salad
Ula, awesome! Let me know how you liked it!
I did! I never thought that this combination is so good. But I added a little bit of chopped onion.
Loved the red beet with pomegranate salad. I discovered an Iranian supermarket nearby and bought a lot of things I hadn´t heard about or had tried before incl. a pomegranate.
After I came home I started googling what I could make with dried garlic, with kashk, with pomegranate for instance. You have helped me tremendously! Thank you. I am looking forward to making new recipes from your site!
PS I didn´t have pomegranatepaste but substituted it with a sweet blueberry syrup. I figured that it would be a combination of sharp sweet and sour in the dressing. Worked out perfectly.
Am going to use this recipe when I am going to cook for my 18 coworkers this month. Thought about combining it with a Moroccon lambsmeatstew with butternutsquash, sweet potatoe, onion and tomato. Unless you have an other suggestion…..:)
Dean Sanam,
There are some other good books such as Fresh Flavors from Israel which is researched by Janna Gur & Taste of Israel – A Mediterranean Feast by Ron Maiberg & Avi Ganor which also give you an idea of how the traditional cuisines which all the different Jewish communities brought with them to Israel is being given a new spin which fits into the climate and into our modern times.
When I lived in Israel over 36 years ago (for 2 years) there was basically only ethnic food of different communities. When I was there 3 years ago this “new” food, so to speak was everywhere. I ate in a little Cafe behind the Machane Yehuda food market and it was possibly the best food I ever tasted.
But I would say that in people’s home they still stick a lot to their traditional food, especially on the Sabbath and holidays. My sister lives in israel and is married to a Tunisian. Sabbath always had cous cous (the real one which is hand made) and the other delicacies. It’s absolutely delicious. Same for the various holidays.
I have Janna Gur’s book and it’s just beautiful in all aspects.
Also, this roasted beet and pomegranate salad must be amazing. I can’t wait to try.
Myriam S.
Thank you for your colorful and descriptive website. I’m definitely using a few of your salads (pomegranate/beet and salad shiraz) for our Purim party this year. I’m going with the Persian theme this year, and I have a feeling your salads are going to give it that element of real authenticity.