I love beetroot, I may have mentioned that already! So I am always looking for new ways to serve it, although grated raw in a salad suits me fine! It is so versatile and such a wine friendly vegetable I do enjoy playing around with it to find different textures and layers of flavour to partner different styles of wine.

Next Thursday, 10/09 at 22h (BST) I am taking part in a ‘live’ tasting with the UK wine giant Naked Wines and local, superstar winemaker, Katie Jones. It is called ‘A Taste of the Languedoc’ and you can join in by tuning into their Facebook page or following their events on line.

My part in the event is to partner two of Katie’s wines with various dishes and to explain why. I have been given a white, Me & Monsieur Jones Blanc 2019, and a red, the Me & Monsieur Jones Rouge 2019. This dish is the vegetarian dish that I have created to partner Katie’s red. It is very simple, packed with flavour and you can adapt it to be vegan if you like or add meat for a fuller, robust flavour.

Ingredients:

250g potato, peeled or scrubbed and coarsely grated

350g beetroot, coarsely grated *

2 large garlic cloves finely diced

50g chickpea flour mixed with enough water to make a slurry (think a thick pancake batter)

2 generous tablespoons of freshly chopped herbs – rosemary, thyme, oregano and parsley ( you can replace with 1 heaped tbsp of herbs de Provence if you don’t have fresh herbs to hand)

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tsp ground cumin

50g grated cheese, I used a tangy ewes milk cheese you can use parmesan or Red Leicester if you like

oil for frying

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Method:

1. Start with grating the potato into a clean towel and wring out the water, I keep the water for making the slurry with the chickpea flour.
2. Grate the beetroot and mix with the potato in a large bowl.
3. Add the garlic, herbs, seasoning and spice. Mix well
4. Add the chickpea slurry, you are looking for it to act as a binder not for it to be liquid.
5. Grab your best non-stick pan and heat a flavourless oil to just before smoking, if your pan is good you won’t need much oil at all.
6. The size of the galettes will depend on how you plan to serve them, they make great starters served as part of a mèze, in that case use a dessert spoon as your size guide. Or you could make larger versions and serve as a main course with a grilled halibut, roasted pork or a delicious helping of Mujadara (Egyptian black lentils and rice).
7. Cook for a couple of minutes on each side until golden. If you flip too quickly they will crumble so be sure to allow the galette to firm up on the first side first.
8. These can be made in advance and reheated in the oven, but as with anything fried they do taste better straight from the pan!

Wine match:

We are going to be enjoying these with Katie’s Me & Monsieur Jones Rouge 2019, a deliciously fruity 80% Grenache and 20% Syrah blend. It is a lovely aromatic wine, bursting with currants and berries, and an underlay of black pepper and a smoky earthiness. I shall serve very lightly chilled at 15C to enhance the fruity character to match the richness of the beetroot.

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*I had bbq’ed mine, at the end of a bbq I throw foil wrapped beetroots into the embers to slow roast. The following day, fish out remove the foil and slip off the skins. If that is too much of a faff for you, simply slow roast in the oven or even easier, use raw beets, they will have more bite but be equally delicious, just use less water in the slurry.