'It's a showstopper,' says chef Shahir Massoud
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Our cookbook of the week is Eat, Habibi, Eat! by Shahir Massoud. Over the next two days, we’ll feature another recipe from the book and an interview with the author.
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To try another recipe from the book, check out: Gido Habib’s ful breakfast.
Chef Shahir Massoud combines bright pink and sunny yellow beet dips in this vibrant appetizer or snack. Beet dip is a given at the start of an Egyptian meal, he says, along with the likes of hummus and baba ghanoush. But he wanted to put his own visual spin on it.
“A bright pink beet dip is always there. If we were in Cairo at a nice little neighbourhood restaurant starting our meal with fresh breads, that would be there. And it’s delicious. So right away, I knew I wanted to do a beet dip.”
Here, Massoud swirls yellow and pink beet dips together in a serving bowl to give the dish a tie-dye-like effect. It requires a little extra care, as you have to keep the different coloured beets separate until plating, but the aesthetic is worth it.
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“When you cook (beets) like that and you puree them like that, and present them like that, I mean, that screams summer. Look at it. It looks like that should be on your patio table,” says Massoud.
“It’s one extra step, but it just looks so cool. It’s beautiful. And then when it gets the za’atar on there, and the pine nuts and the olive oil, it’s a showstopper. Sometimes it’s literally one little twist like that. And aside from that, it’s not that different from the straight-up beet dip that you would get. (It’s) finding little ways to maybe change the presentation, or the vibe of it.”
PINK AND GOLD BEET DIP WITH PINE NUTS
Prep time: 15 minutes | Cook time: 2 hours
3 medium-sized red beets
3 medium-sized yellow beets
1/2 tsp turmeric
4 cloves garlic, divided
1 cup greek yogurt, divided
1 cup tahini, divided
2 tsp salt, divided
2 tsp ground cumin, divided
2 tsp ground coriander, divided
2 tbsp lemon juice, divided
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Garnish:
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted and chopped
1/4 bunch chives, finely chopped
1 tbsp za’atar
2 tbsp olive oil
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Wrap the red beets in a tight foil packet and wrap the yellow beets in a separate foil packet. Try to find beets of similar size so that they cook in the same amount of time and keep the yellow beets separate from the red ones to preserve their contrasting colour.
Step 2
Roast on a baking sheet for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until very tender. Remove the beets from the oven, unwrap them from the foil packets and peel while still warm. Chop the peeled beets, reserving 1/2 cup of the yellow beets for garnish.
Step 3
Puree the yellow beet dip first. Place the peeled and chopped yellow beets in the food processor and add the turmeric. Then add 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 cup of the yogurt, 1/2 cup of the tahini, 1 teaspoon each of salt, cumin, coriander and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Puree until very smooth. Remove from the food processor and transfer to a bowl.
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Step 4
Repeat with the red beets. Add them to the food processor along with the remaining garlic, yogurt, tahini, salt, cumin, coriander and lemon juice. Blend until very smooth.
Step 5
To plate, place a dollop of the yellow beet dip on the bottom of your serving bowl. Top with some of the red beet dip, then artfully draw swirls through the whole thing with an offset spatula or the tip of a knife. Creatively add more dollops of the contrasting colours to create a unique look. To finish, top with the pine nuts, chives, za’atar, olive oil and the leftover yellow beets. Most importantly, post a picture of all this hard work on Instagram before you dig in!
Serves: 8
Recipe and image excerpted from Eat, Habibi, Eat! by Shahir Massoud. Copyright © 2021 Shahir Massoud. Photography by Kyla Zanardi. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.
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Cook this: Pink and gold beet dip with pine nuts from Eat, Habibi, Eat! - National Post
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