Somerville Beetroot, Avocado and Cashew - Chef Recipe by Sam Moore

Ingredients

Vegan ricotta:

100g cashew nuts (soaked overnight)
50mL still water
10mL fresh lemon juice
1/2 garlic clove, micro planed
1g onion powder
2g salt

Beetroot discs:

8 large purple Somerville beetroot
2 bay leaves
10 black peppercorns
200mL beetroot cooking liquid
2g Maldon sea salt

Beetroot cooking liquid:

25mL still water
75mL red wine vinegar
100mL extra virgin olive oil
5g salt

Avocado mousse:

2 avocados
1 lemon, juiced
4g salt
60mL extra virgin olive oil
200g ‘Pimp my salad vegan cashew and Parmesan' crumble

Beetroot and onion relish:

250g large purple beetroot, julienned
250g brown onion, finely sliced
25mL extra virgin olive oil
100g brown sugar
100mL apple cider vinegar

Pickled beetroot discs:

300g beetroot centre offcut cylinders
1 large golden beetroot
100mL Forum Chardonnay vinegar
50g caster sugar
5g fennel seeds

Method

Vegan ricotta:

Soak the cashew nuts water in the refrigerator overnight for at least 12 hours.

The next day take the cashew nuts from the fridge, drain all but a little of the water and transfer to a high-speed blender. Add all other ingredients apart from the salt and blend on high speed for about 5 minutes until your mixture is smooth and glossy.

Pass through a fine sieve, season with salt and place into a piping bag, keep at room temperature.

Beetroot cooking liquid:

Place the water, vinegar and olive oil into a whisking bowl and whisk until fully incorporated. Season with salt, chill in refrigerator.

Large beetroot discs:

Peel the beetroot, once peeled, turn the beetroot on its side.

Cut into a disc-like shape like a ‘fondant’ about 3.5 cm height by 6 cm diameter. Take a 2 cm round star-shaped cookie cutter and punch an even hole out in the centre of the beetroot. Reserve the beetroot cylinder centres, covered with a cold damp cloth for application further on in the process.

Place the beetroot ‘fondant’ discs into a large cryovac bag and add the bay leaves, black peppercorns and beetroot cooking liquid. Compress on high vacuum; or without the cryovac bag, cook beetroot discs in oven in the cooking liquid. Steam the beetroot discs at 100 C for around 40-45 minutes.

When the beetroot is cooked, keep it in the cryovac bag and immediately plunge into an ice-cold water bath to stop the cooking process. Once completely chilled, take from the cryovac bag, discard the liquid and keep beetroot discs at room temperature for plating.

Beetroot and onion relish:

Finely slice the beetroot and the brown onions. Add extra virgin olive oil to a sauté pan and gently heat. Start by sweating off the finely sliced onions, taking care to not add any colour. Gently sweat off until the onions have become translucent.

Add in beetroot and sweat until it starts to soften. Add in sugar and vinegar, cook down for 20-30 minutes on a gentle heat until a jam-like consistency. Set aside in a container to chill.

Pickled beetroot discs:

Start by toasting the fennel seeds in a sauté pan. Heat vinegar and sugar together in a saucepan until sugar has dissolved and add fennel seeds. Take off the heat and leave on the side to chill to room temperature.

Peel the large golden beetroot. Cut into fondant-like shape again as done with purple beetroot. Take a 2 cm round star-shaped cookie cutter and punch out six even beetroot star-shaped cylinders. Using a mandolin, shave the golden and purple beetroot star-shaped cylinders into 0.5 cm discs but keep both separate; this will not allow the purple beetroot colour to run.

In two separate cryovac bags, add golden beetroot stars to one bag and purple to the other. Evenly split pickling mixture into the two the two bags. Compress on full vacuum; or without the cryovac machine, put the pickled beetroot discs into a container and pour hot pickling liquid over.

Avocado mousse:

Set up a high-speed blender, cut and de-pip the avocados. Scrape avocado halves from the skin into the blender. Add only 30mL extra virgin olive oil. Add the freshly squeezed lemon juice and salt.

Blend on high speed until smooth and glossy. Take a mixing bowl filled with ice, then place another mixing bowl on top. Pass avocado through a fine sieve into your cold mixing bowl to chill immediately.

Place avocado in a piping bag and pipe mixture into a 4 cm by 2 cm deep semi-dome sphere mould. Place in the freezer to freeze solid. Once frozen pop the domes from mould. Working very quickly, coat the avocado domes in the extra virgin olive oil and crumb in the cashew and parmesan crumble.

Set aside at room temperature to slowly thaw.

To finish and plate:

Place a 6 cm diameter round cookie cutter in the centre of the plate. Place 60 g of beetroot and onion relish in the centre of the cookie cutter and push down with a spoon to keep in a circular shape.

Next evenly season the beetroot ‘fondant’ discs with the Maldon sea salt and place on top of the beetroot and onion relish.

Next take your vegan ricotta and pipe into the centre hole of each beetroot. Taking a small palette knife under the semi avocado domes, lift up and place dome on top of the beetroot fondant disc. This stage is vitally important as the avocado mousse needs to still be firm enough to pick up. If it's too soft you will damage the dome-like appearance and the crumble will become soggy.

Drain the pickled beetroot star-shaped cylinders, still keeping both colours separate place on kitchen cloth. Brush some olive oil on the pickled discs to make them shine. Do not season. Place five of each colour per plate starting from the central top of the plate. Place down the golden star disc first then purple overlapped underneath and so on, with the other four of each in that pattern.

Check the avocado mousse is now soft by very gently pressing on the top of the dome.

Serve.