Ollie Templeton's recipe for smoked beetroot from Carousel

This flavour powerhouse of a dish combines the earthiness of beetroot with a hint of spice for a must-make meal

Published: Thursday 22nd September 2022

Serves 2

Preparation time 30 minutes

Cooking time 3 hours

Carousel, famed for its rotating selection of popups from international chefs, is a multifaceted space that has a permanent wine bar, the popup space at the back and a more long-term, incubator space for burgeoning food and drink concepts. At the centre of it all is Ollie Templeton, the immensely talented chef who deftly turns his hand to a range of cuisines depending on who is in the kitchen at any given time. 

Alongside assisting visiting chefs, Templeton manages that kitchen at the wine bar, where the menu of small plates unsurprisingly pulls on a range of influences. This dish, combining slow-roasted beetroots, with middle-eastern influenced tahini yoghurt, Mexican flavours in the Guajillo chilli oil and a dose of dill and crispy capers, personifies the international view at Carousel. It is the perfect dish to enliven your meals as autumn draws in. 

Ingredients

For the smoked beetroot

  • 500g Red Beetroot
  • 500g Candy Beetroot
  • 500g Yellow Beetroot
  • 50g Olive oil
  • 50g Chardonnay vinegar
  • Salt

For the seasoned yoghurt 

  • 100g yoghurt
  • 20g Tahini
  • 1 clove garlic (minced)
  • 1 lemon (zest and juice)
  • Salt and pepper

Guajillo oil

  • 200g Guajillo Chilli
  • 200g Neutral oil

Crispy capers

  • 20g capers
  • 100g Neutral Oil

Dill oil

  • 100g Dill
  • 100g Neutral Oil

Method

For the roast beetroot

  1. Individually wrap the beetroots in tin foil, before sealing the foil season with salt and a splash of vinegar and olive oil. Roast in the oven at 120C for 2-3 hours so the slowly caramelise. They are cooked once you can cut them with a butter knife, there shouldn’t be any resistance.
  2. Peel the beetroots and cut them into bite size pieces, season them again with olive oil, vinegar and salt and store in the fridge.

For the seasoned yoghurt

  1. Mix the yoghurt with the tahini, grated or minced garlic, salt, pepper and zested lemon zest and juice.

For the guajillo oil

  1. Deseed the chillies and toast them in a hot pan, this will release a lot of aroma, so if you start chocking on the chilli fumes that’s a good thing.
  2. Heat up the oil to 70C, this than be approximate, then blend the oil and chilli together for 8 minutes.
  3. Let the chilli infuse in the oil overnight, then strain the next day. It will be vibrantly red, with a nutty, slightly smoky flavour, and obviously some chilli heat too.

For the crispy capers

  1. Squeeze and dry the capers and fry in hot oil until crispy. It will take around 5 minutes. Once crispy store in kitchen paper.

For the dill oil

  1. Following the same principle as the chilli oil, blend the dill at 80C for 8 minutes. It will be vibrant green. Infuse the herb solids in the oil over night the strain through a muslin cloth of filter coffee paper.

To serve

  1. Serve this one at room temperature. Works really well as a sharer or starter so depending on this you can figure out the size of each portion.
  2. Spoon on 2 tablespoons of the seasoned yoghurt onto a plate then scatter on pieces of dressed beetroots, followed by both oils and finally the crispy capers.
  3. You can garnish with some extra dill if you have some, otherwise leave it as it is.
Loading