Some food just looks beautiful, the colours sing and the dish is like a picture on the plate. This balsamic onion and beetroot bake is almost that dish. When you prepare it and get it all in the roasting tin it is a glorious sight, the deep purple vegetables are flecked with greeny blue thyme. Then you add a gloss of oil and a dark brown drizzle of balsamic vinegar and it looks like a piece of modern art. I think these pictures are some of my favourite food prep photos ever. When I took them I wanted to get them framed and put it on my kitchen wall (in fact I may still do that!!!).
Then I cooked the dish! I was so disappointed, so disappointed that I almost didn’t share the recipe with you. My glorious piece of food art had turned into what looked like lumps of charcoal. At first I thought I had burnt it, but the beetroot was soft and the onions were sweet and caramelised. It wasn’t burnt it just wasn’t pretty.
So I am sharing more photos of before it went into the oven 🙂 this dish is beautiful before it is cooked and delicious when it is cooked.
The sweet beetroot and onion are roasted with balsamic vinegar, oil and fresh thyme. I like to add a drizzle of maple syrup, but that really isn’t necessary. This is a delicious dish without it, but I just love maple syrup glazed veg!
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- 6 small and cleaned beetroot
- 2 red onions
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp maple syrup (optional)
- 2 tbsp of olive oil
- 1 tbsp fresh thyme
- Ground black pepper
- Salt
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Preheat oven to 180°C/160ºC fan forced/Gas mark 4.
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Peel the beetroot and cut into quarters.
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Peel the onion but make sure you leave the root intact.
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Cut the onions in half and then cut each half into 3 segments
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Place the beetroot and red onion into a baking dish.
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Pour over the balsamic vinegar and olive oil (and maple syrup, if using).
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Sprinkle over the fresh thyme and season well with salt and black pepper
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Roast for 45 minutes.
This is so pretty!!! I love it.
Oh thank you Caroline. It was pretty I almost didn’t want to cook it!
I love roasting vegetables! It gives them a glorious taste. I love the addition of the maple syrup! It’s always great to have something sweet to counteract the acidic taste of the balsamic. This looks scrumptious, and I can’t wait to try this!
I recently made a cooking and baking blog, too.
http://kcolescreativecorner.com
I would greatly appreciate it if you would check it out!
Thanks so much!
Thank you.
I will check it out. Good luck with it all 🙂
What a wonderful and fresh idea. Beets are one of my favorites!
Came across this wonderful recipe from the Linkin party TryABiteTuesday from Caleigh’s Kitchen
Thank you for stopping by Tina.
I love them too, such a unique sweet earthy flavour 🙂
Love roasted onions and have been looking for new ideas to try out. This looks beautiful!
Thanks for linking up at Try a Bite Tuesday link party!!
Thank you Amber, I think roasting is the best way to cook most veg.
Thank you for hosting 🙂
This looks so delicious and there is so much it would go with. Some Jersey Royals would be delicious with this, but then it would be amazing in a cold pasta salad or stirred through cous cous. Oh the possibilities are endless 🙂
A delicious recipe, I found your site through #TryABiteTuesday
Stirred through couscous is a great idea, maybe with some feta crumbled over the top. Yum!
That really is such a pretty before photo but the ‘after’ is good too and sounds delicious – I love that sweet/earthy flavour combination
Thank you Nicole, I think it was mostly disappointment that the beautiful colours has disappeared. I wanted to eat the raw picture 😉 but the cooked one was definitely delicious.
Heyya, Those beets are gorgeous! They must have tasted incredible. It’s been ages since I’ve cooked beets. 🙂
Thank you.
I love roasted veg, they all taste so much better roasted 🙂
Those beets are gorgeous! They must have tasted incredible. It’s been ages since I’ve cooked beets.
They were so beautiful before they were cooked and then tasted beautiful after they were cooked 😉
Thank you for coming by Christin 🙂
Wow the flavor of this looks absolutely unreal!!!!
Thank you Jocelyn 🙂
You kill two birds with one stone here…beautiful art piece for your wall! And delicious dish! I’d hang it! And eat it! No doubt!
🙂
I’m working on liking beetroot! This should help me on the way.
Hehe, I hope so 🙂
I absolutely adore purple vegies (most of us don’t eat enough of them). The colours are gorgeous and I just bet it tasted wonderful 🙂
Thank you Emma 🙂
This dish is simply stunning. I love the colors.
Thank you Sam. I am still thinking of framing one of them for the kitchen wall! 🙂