I first tasted this beetroot dip, known as Beetroot Borani, at the wonderful Muiño restaurant in Bristol. However, it's also apparently a very popular dish at Morito, Sam and Sam Clark's famous tapas restaurant in London.
In their recipe, they use 700g beetroot, but I found the dip to be a bit bland (heresy I know!), which is why I've used the same amount of other ingredients but almost halved the amount of beetroot.
They also recommend boiling the beetroot, but I prefer to roast mine in foil as I feel it intensifies that delicious flavour. (If you are short of time, just use pre-cooked!)
Finally, when adding the ingredients to the chopped beetroot, then I'd recommend adding half and tasting, and then adjusting to suit your own personal taste.
400g fresh beetroot (or pre-cooked beetroot)
Garlic clove
4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons of Greek yoghurt
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
Fresh dill - to taste
Seasoning
120g feta
Handful of walnut pieces
Nigella seeds
- Pre-heat the oven to 190c.
- Top and tail the beetroots, leaving a little of the stalk intact and then cut any large beetroot in half.
- Place each beetroot (or half beetroot) in a piece of foil and drizzle with a little olive oil. Wrap the beetroot in the foil and place in the hot oven.
- Cook the beetroot for 1 - 1½ hours, until tender. To test if the beetroot is ready, remove from the oven and check how soft the beetroot are by inserting a small, sharp knife. If it slides in easily, then the beetroot is cooked.
- Once the beetroot is ready, remove from the oven, unwrap the foil and leave to cool.
- Once the beetroot has cooled down enough to touch, remove the remaining stalk and peel or rub off the skin (this is the frustrating bit!).
- Cut the beetroot into bite-sized chunks and place in a food processor and blend until you have a rough purée (you don't want it too smooth).
- Spoon the purée into a bowl.
- Peel the garlic clove and using a fine grater (I use a microplane), grate into the purée.
- Add the olive oil, yoghurt, red wine vinegar and a tablespoon or two of finely chopped dill. Season and mix well to combine.
- Taste and adjust as required.
- When ready to serve, top with crumbled feta, walnuts, nigella seeds and some more finely chopped dill.
