My Spring Chioggia (candystripe) beetroot crop did well, but with the weather warming up it was time to pull the last of them. Because of their red and white rings I have only been using them as carpaccio, but as we had so many it was time to try them cooked.
Beetroot and carrots are two crops I had to learn to get right, but now that the soil is good for them they do well. I sow three types of beetroot, Chioggia, Detroit, and Early Wonder, and use the second two purple beets for cooking. The red and white zones of Chioggia disappear in cooking, but I read that they have a fine flavour, so gave them a try baked.
Cooked Chioggia beetroot
I just trimmed the tops and roots, sat them on foil, tossed some olive oil over them and sealed the foil into a packet. Then I put them in the oven with a batch of bread (240 C hot oven, falling) for an hour. When they were cool I peeled them, which needed a potato peeler by comparison with standard beetroot skin that just rubs off.
I am impressed with their colour. It’s a nice golden to orange colour, and a bit translucent. They looked great diced in a mixed vegetable ‘sauce’ over zucchini pasta. The flavour is good too. The eye might deceive the tongue in this case though; I would say the flavour is different to baked purple beets, like ‘Detroit’, but I would have to do a side-by-side tasting to evaluate that. Certainly if cooked Chioggia beets were on your plate and you didn’t know what they were, they would at least be a bit of a pleasant puzzle while you worked out their identity.
So I won’t be stuck using my Chioggias for carpaccio only in future, although it’s still the best use for their striking colour.