As I am writing this I have a huge smile on my face because I am in Charleston, SC for a little beach vacation, some sightseeing and a lot of food. I never heard before about Charleston being such a great foodie city, but everyone I told about my vacation plans, was mentioning the great food and told me: “you’ll love it”. And I do, I really do! I am going to tell you about the restaurants I tried and all this whole shebang as soon as I am back home and able to close the first button of my pants again.

What I am looking forward to do while exploring strange cities, is visiting the local farmers market. Although I basically had all my meals and the ones in between, cooked and served by someone else and I didn’t cook more,  than what you see on the picture above since one week, but a stroll over a farmers market can lead to a flash of genius for future kitchen adventures. Here are some pictures from Charleston, more are about to come.

Red beets are not exactly eye candy, it’s more falling in love on the second sight. The dream team combination is hands down with dill and horseradish. Fresh dill was an easy find on the farmers market, horseradish not so. Hey someone mixed wasabi (aka Japanese horseradish) with mayonnaise and sells it in jars in your supermarket, can’t get easier than that. If  you are not a fan of burning inside your nose and teary eyes, buy the small jars with white horseradish and mix it with yoghurt, adjust the ratio just how you like. If fresh garlic (looks like a small version of leek) is not available for you, simply use 2 sliced garlic cloves and skip the topping of the beets.

red beet tartine

serves two

ingredients:

4 small red beets

1 fresh garlic

olive oil

wasabi mayonnaise

small bunch fresh dill, chopped

4 slices of sourdough bread or baguette

aluminium foil and baking sheet to save your oven from potential dripping

instructions:

Preheat your oven to 200 C / 400 F. Wash the beets and the garlic, pat dry and cut off the leaves. Keep the garlic green but discard (or better save for another purpose) the green part of the beets. Put on one aluminium foil sheet big enough to hold all beets and still closeable. Drizzle with olive oil,  top with the garlic green and make a pouch with the foil, closing at the top. Place on a baking sheet and cook 45 minutes in the oven.

Slice the remaining (white) part of the garlic and Make a small pouch, add some olive oil and sprinkle with salt.

Remove the beets from the oven, don’t open the foil and let steam for 10 minutes. Meanwhile put the garlic pouch into the oven for 10 minutes. If you like you can add your bread to the oven to crisp it up.

Open the aluminium foil and let sit until cool enough to handle. Discard the garlic greens.With a paper towel rub over the beets to remove the skin, slice the beets and the bread and assemble the tartine: spread some (about 2 teaspoons per slice) wasabi mayonnaise, a layer of beet slices,  top with garlic and sprinkle with dill and salt if desired. A drizzle with some olive oil would be great.