My go-to source for this type of problem is the Martha Stewart website. They have these great photo galleries of recipes for different ingredients, and the beet gallery pointed me to an intriguing starting point: pickled beets. After doing some digging around in a few other corners of the Internet I came across red beet eggs, a dish of Pennsylvania Dutch origin.
The major components of this dish are three of my favorite things: beets, eggs, and vinegar, so I figured I couldn't go wrong. And I didn't! The dish was a tasty as it was beautiful.
So let's talk about how it's made.
1. Eggs
Use your favorite method to hard boil and peel 6 eggs. Keep in mind that super fresh eggs are harder to peel (i.e. you will end up tearing off little chunks of the albumen), but adding about 1/4 cup of salt to your water should help.
My preferred cooking method is from Southern Living. First put your eggs in a sauce pan and cover with water. Put them on the stove on high until the water boils (this will go faster if you put the lid on them). Remove from heat, cover, and let sit for 15 minutes. Then dump the hot water and run cold water over the eggs until they are no longer hot to the touch. Peel the eggs and keep them refrigerated.
2. Beets
You'll need to boil about 1 lb of beet roots. Chop off the stalks and greens and place the roots in a sauce pan. Cover with water and let them simmer. The cooking time will vary based on the size of your roots. Mine were about size of golf balls, and I cooked them for about 45 minutes. Bigger roots may need longer. You will want them to be about as tender as you'd want a boiled potato. Remove beets and reserve 1 cup of the cooking water. Slip off the skins and slice into 1/4-inch-thick medallions.
3. Pickling liquid
This is the fun part. In a sauce pan, mix the 1 cup reserved beet juice with 1 cup cider vinegar. Add 1/4 cup sweetener (I used honey, but granulated sugar, brown sugar, agave nectar, or even Splenda would work). Toss in a roughly sliced onion and a few cloves of garlic. Then add the seasonings of your choice. I used 1 teaspoon prepared mustard (you could also use mustard seed), 1 teaspoon whole coriander seed, 1/2 teaspoon celery seed, and 4 cardamom pods. You can use whatever spices you like (e.g. peppercorns, anise seed, cloves, bay leaf, dill seed, mace, allspice, cinnamon stick, ginger root) Bring this mixture to a boil and let simmer, covered, for at least 30 minutes.
4. Put it all together
Add the eggs and beets into the hot pickling liquid. Let it all come to room temperature then cover and store in the refrigerator for a few days. Mine were steeping for two days, and as you can see this turned most of the egg white a lovely purple-red color.
5. Eat it!
I mixed mine into a salad (lettuce, kohlrabi, radishes, and roasted pecans), but these would probably be great served over some sautéed beet greens! I haven't tried this, but I imagine you could emulsify the remaining pickling liquid with some olive oil to make a really beautiful vinaigrette.
