Eddie Shepherd - Textures of Beetroot

with Citrus Sweet & Sours and Goat's Cheese

Chef of the Future 2009 joint winner and vegetarian chef Eddie Shepherd shows how to turn the humble beetroot into a gourmet dish. Filmed at the Cordon Vert School 24th February 2010.

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Eddie tells us more about his dish:

"I created this dish focusing on beetroot as my central ingredient. I wanted to make this the star of the dish by presenting and highlighting its qualities through the use of sweet and sour tastes from citrus fruit, and various preparations to give it different textures in each element of the dish.

The aim is to elicit a response of surprise and pleasure from the recipient at finding different parts of the dish have distinct personality and yet combine together perfectly and harmoniously as a delicious plate of food that really shows off a vegetable like beetroot, by emphasizing its unique characteristics and enhancing and showcasing them though simple flavour combination and textural contrast."

"It might appear a complex dish but in reality all that is going on here in terms of taste and flavour is based upon what is present in or naturally compliments the flavour of beetroot. The challenge for a chef is to take these beautiful features of an ingredient and work with them to produce a dish that tastes great and gets the best out of your chosen produce.

Personally I had to reign myself in with this dish from adding further elements, techniques, textures and flavours because I wanted to avoid overloading the dish and potentially it becoming confused. But there were so many more things inspired by just this one vegetable that I wanted to do. I hope that this piece will allow you see how much you can potentially get from one central ingredient and a couple of contrasting tastes and textures." - Eddie Shepherd