Get to know this bleeding, beautiful sweet-savoury vegetable.

What a gloriously opulent colour beetroot is. It puts me in mind of Thai silk or velvet or rubies. It has a unique, satiny smoothness when cooked, too, and an unusual, sweet yet savoury flavour.

The marvellous colour comes from a combination of the purple pigment betacyanin, and a yellow one, betaxanthin, and it will certainly stain the cook's fingers as well as the chopping board. Jane Grigson calls beetroot a "bossy vegetable" as it stains all it comes in contact with. I slip on rubber gloves to peel or chop raw beetroot, and the chopping board will always need a good scrub with a bit of kitchen salt.

It must be the purple pigment that bleeds most freely, as golden beetroot does not stain nearly as deeply. The "bleeding" is a desirable quality if making borscht or a beetroot-infused sauce for red meat, or a beetroot dip or beetroot and ginger juice for breakfast.

However, if using beetroot with other ingredients in a salad, mix all the other bits first and add the beetroot only when you are ready to serve.

Beetroot is good both cooked and raw. I have found that salads made with raw, grated beetroot bleed less than salads made with cooked beetroot. Try coarse gratings or julienne shreds of carrot, beetroot and celeriac lightly tossed with a delicate dressing of verjus and extra virgin olive oil, or cider vinegar and extra virgin
olive oil.

The sweetness and intensity of beetroot also goes very well with richly flavoured and dense-fleshed game meats such as kangaroo, squab pigeon, venison or hare. Such meats are best served medium, or even better, rare, and slices of cooked beetroot slipped into rich meat juices look most dramatic. As with all cooked beetroot preparations, if it is the rich, purple hue you wish to preserve, add the beetroot just long enough to reheat. If it simmers too long in liquid, it turns copper-red and the flavour is dulled.

A puree of beetroot, smooth or quite coarse, is another way of marrying game meats with the colour and flavour.

We can buy beetroots small or large, usually red, occasionally a fabulous orange and very occasionally striped. If the beetroot is fresh (from the garden or a farmer's market, for example), the tops will be perky and shiny and can be used as a vegetable or tossed with fresh pasta. The tops will need thorough washing and are best braised (stems and leaves) with a small amount of olive oil or butter in a tightly covered, small pan for about five minutes.

Taste a stem for tenderness and then add a few drops of sherry vinegar or balsamic vinegar and a grinding of pepper. Do not use beetroot leaves that are yellow or wilted - they will taste very nasty.

I like beetroot with citrus, such as in the salad recipe at right. The avocado adds creaminess and the pita bread adds crunch.

Its sweet yet savoury character is best highlighted by being combined with something sharp, hence the popularity of the old-time, unsubtle boiled beetroot drowned in a dish of throat-catching vinegar. A little really good vinegar is excellent and, of course, sour cream is traditional when making borscht.

Beetroot is used traditionally to colour chunks of turnip in a favourite Middle Eastern pickle.
At a dinner on Hamilton Island recently as part of the Great Barrier Feast, chef Darren Simpson prepared a delicious entree of fat smoked eel with young leeks, a coarse puree of red beetroot and sliced golden beetroot with horseradish cream. A great combination.
In European markets the beetroot for sale seems to be always cooked. And very unappetising it looks, too, all sunken and shrivelled. I puzzle over the reason for this. Is it because beetroot is seen as too time-consuming to cook from raw? Is it because ovens were not very common in some homes in Europe? Surely not, for this has changed long ago. No doubt some reader will know the answer.

It is true that a good-sized beetroot can take up to an hour to become tender - the small ones much less.

I prefer to roast beetroot in the oven, well-washed and cut into wedges or slices if large, or left whole if small, together with olive oil, garlic and herbs. The skins will slip off when cooked and the juices in the pan can be served, too.

Or if the beetroot is needed whole, I wrap it in oiled foil and bake it for about an hour. If simmering the beetroot in water, do not peel beforehand and do not cut off the tap root or the colour will bleed dramatically.