As usual, I changed the recipe a little bit. First of all, I used yellow beetroot from the farmer's market which has a more delicate taste and doesn't color your hands as the red ones do.
It took me a long time to gather the courage to cook these. At home we never made them, not even during my time working in the catering business. Just having a talk with the vendor at the farmer's market some time ago I decided to prepare them myself. In fact, you get the red ones all the time, already cooked, but the yellow beets seem to be a rather new species. Actually, if you have ever cooked potatoes, it is just the same. Leave them in their peel and cook them with a little salt about 20-30 minutes until they are done. Peel them and cut them into very thin slices. The seasoning I made was lemon, a little salt and olive oil, topping it with grated (organic) orange peel which I stored in my freeze during the winter season. We had had two large boxes of Sicilian oranges in January and all the peel was taken away before using the juice or eating them.
In the end I sprinkled grated bottarga on them. Now this might ask for some logistics. It is called the Sardinian caviar or the roe of the grey mullet. Wikipedia tells me that it is also soldin other European countries and Japan, even Africa and Florida. Since it is dried and lasts very long, you might be lucky to try it. We brought it from Sardinia which is our favorite food shopping region. The taste is very special and for me it doesn't resemble the taste of the usual caviar but is much more earthy and smoky.
Andrew Zimmern, which I like very much, made a great video about food in Sardinia, here is a snippet about bottarga.
On this picture you can see it as well on the bottom left
It has a form like a locust bean
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