Georgian-style beets
A light, zesty beet salad with tkemali sauce. A juicy, vivid, deeply flavorful dish. Tangy-sweet tkemali sauce, garlic, and cilantro turn plain boiled beets into a delicacy! The spicy, fresh notes in this salad win everyone over.
Cooking method
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Step 1:
Choose juicy, sweet beets — I lucked out with some from the new harvest. Wash the beets and boil them or bake them in foil in the oven until tender. I boiled mine for two hours, since they were large; medium ones take about an hour and a half, small ones about an hour. Cook or bake them in their skins so the beets don't lose their color; to keep the color while boiling, you can also add lemon juice to the water — 1/2 teaspoon per quart (liter) of water. Peel them and cut them into strips.
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Step 2:
Wash the herbs well, dry them on paper towels, and chop them finely. I used cilantro, dill, and parsley. I think it's these herbs that make the salad truly Georgian.
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Step 3:
Chop the garlic however you like — I minced mine very finely with a knife.
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Step 4:
Peel, rinse, and cut the onion into half-rings, or a little finer as I did. Red onion is best for this salad — it suits it well in both color and flavor.
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Step 5:
Put the herbs, garlic, and onion in the bowl with the beets, add 2 tablespoons of tkemali sauce and 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Our family loves Georgian food, and naturally this salad was right up our alley. You can serve it as a side or as a dish on its own. It can really liven up a holiday spread. The salad isn't hard to make and doesn't take much time. On top of that, all the ingredients are easy to find, low in calories, and good for you, so it suits anyone watching their health and figure. As for the recipe, the vegetable oil seemed a bit short to me, so I added another tablespoon, but that's a matter of taste. The recipe also lists pepper, but I left it out — my tkemali sauce was quite hot, so it was spicy enough without pepper; if you like things hotter, add the pepper, also to taste. My husband and son don't care for beets, but they ate this salad happily, which made me very glad! Make this salad and surprise your family and friends.
Caloric content of the products possible in the composition of the dish
- Onion - 41 kcal/100g
- Beets - 40 kcal/100g
- Dried beets - 278 kcal/100g
- Boiled beets - 49 kcal/100g
- Garlic - 143 kcal/100g
- Ground black pepper - 255 kcal/100g
- Vegetable oil - 873 kcal/100g
- Salt - 0 kcal/100g
- Fresh frozen soup greens in a package - 41 kcal/100g
- Fresh herbs - 41 kcal/100g
- Tkemali - 418 kcal/100g
