Beetroot and walnut spread

13Jan08

This spread (or dip) is from a book on Georgian cooking, for which I wrote a review (at foodblog Zestz, in Dutch). With Georgia, I mean the country of Georgia, situated near the Black Sea, bordering with Russia, Turkey and Armenia, not the USA state of Georgia!
There were quite a lot of interesting recipes in the book, with strange and unfamiliar flavour combinations, often with fresh herbs like dill, cilantro and parsley. Sometimes they felt like the Turkish kitchen, and sometimes they reminded me of Iranian cooking, chicken with pomegranate seeds and dishes like that. Can you picture a beetroot dip with chopped fresh cilantro, walnuts, garlic, flavoured with fenugreek and coriander seeds? I couldn’t.

So I decided to make it! Take one cooked beetroot, 150 grams of walnuts, 1 onion, half a bunch of fresh cilantro, and put all in a food processor. Blend until smooth. Add one clove of mashed garlic, salt and pepper, and add ground fenugreek and ground coriander powder. Add two tablespoons of red wine vinegar and a dash of red pepper. Mash with fork to combine, put in a nice bowl and make some pretty patterns with a fork. (I tried, but the result isn’t very spectacular). Serve with a Turkish kind of flatbread or crusty other bread to your liking. I liked the flavour! The beetroot taste had somewhat disappeared; the walnut gave a nice background touch, the cilantro put the flavours together and the garlic, onion and fenugreek-coriander seeds gave a nice kick. Really nice, and simple to make. I think I will try more Georgian dishes in the future!

Filed under: sauces, vegetarian   |  2 Comments