Beet Pie

When I was little, I was the kid sitting at the dinner table, long after everyone else had left, after dishes had been washed and dried and put away, after my sister had tired of taunting me about the television she was able to watch and I was not, because I would not eat my vegetables. Lima beans, peas, those fucking Brussels sprouts, I did not have a taste for them.

This was an unhappy coincidence, because my mother loved all vegetables. It was not uncommon for my sister and me to finish setting the table ("forks on the left!"), look at each other wordlessly weighing the pros and cons of a spat in the moments before supper, decide better of it before sliding along the walls of the dining room around the doorway into the kitchen to find not one, but two green things steaming next to the meatloaf or roasted chicken thighs on the stove. It is a testament to my mom's cooking in general, or maybe my optimistic nature, that I did not dread these meals. Eventually I figured out the trick of mixing peas in with mashed potatoes to get through.

The only vegetable I don't remember encountering was a beet. I had a vague notion that they existed, of course, but we didn't cross paths for many years. The first time I actually saw a beet in any form, I was a teenager visiting my mother's brother and his family. It was after supper on a humid but breezy summer evening, and various members of the family were still lingering around the table, conversating, when my little girl cousin climbed up into my aunt's lap and asked if she could have some beets. My aunt looked at her a little quizzically, since we'd all finished eating, and beets had most certainly not been part of the menu, but shrugged and reached into the refrigerator, retrieving a Ball jar full of a dark red liquid with rounded chunks jostling around in it. The little girl pulled out a few chunks, chewing thoughtfully between each one. My aunt reached for the lid to screw it back on, but my cousin emitted a little whine to indicate that she intended to eat some more. I think she ended up finishing the jar.

Curiosity eventually got the better of me. After I moved away and began feeding myself, I gradually retried my old enemies. Yellow squash, eggplant, mustard greens, even sauerkraut turned out to tickle my fancy. On a whim one evening, I bought a can of pickled beets, just to see what it would be like. I know, a can. But I was probably 22 and who really thinks clearly at that age? And anyway, I loved them. I have never looked back. Steamed, roasted, but best of all, home pickled, hiding in the back of the fridge, just waiting for a 2 am date with pumpernickel toast and goat cheese. Beets taste like the earth from which they come, but not hard, cold winter dirt. More like warm, black loam, freshly aerated in anticipation of new seedlings. They taste like potential.

Beet Pie

Pastry for single crust pie
1 1/2 # red beets (4-5 medium)
1/2 large yellow onion
1 medium fennel bulb
Olive oil
2 C dry sherry
1 C vegetable stock, plus additional for blending
4 T butter
4 oz chevre
1 T kosher salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350. Roll pastry into a 13" circle and place into a 9" pie plate. Tuck overhanging edges under and press the pastry into your desired edge. Freeze for 30 minutes.
Prick the crust with a paring knife or fork to prevent air bubbles. Line the crust with aluminum foil and fill with pie weights. Bake until the sides begin to set, about 15 minutes, then remove the foil and weights and bake a further 10 minutes, until the entire shell is a pale golden color. Remove pie plate from oven and set on a rack to cool.
Raise oven temperature to 400. Wash and trim beets. Rub with olive oil and sprinkle liberally with salt. Roast until very tender, about 1 1/2 hours.
Meanwhile, finely dice onion and 1/2 of fennel bulb. Heat 2 T olive oil in a heavy bottomed skillet. Sweat onions and fennel until translucent. Raise heat to medium high, and saute until the edges of the aromatics turn golden brown. Deglaze with 1 C sherry. Reduce until almost dry, and then deglaze with 1 C vegetable stock. Reduce by half. Remove from heat and transfer vegetables to a clean bowl.
Return skillet to heat and pour in remaining sherry. Reduce by half. Remove from heat and swirl in butter 1 T at a time. Whisk in chevre until the liquid is completely smooth. Set aside.
When beets have cooled enough to handle, peel away the skins. Reduce oven temperature to 350.
Roughly chop the beets and add them to the bowl with the onion and fennel mixture. Place a third of this mixture in a blender, along with enough vegetable stock to lubricate. Blend until homogenized. Pour the blended mixture into a food mill fit with the finest die. Blend the remaining mixture in thirds and pour into the food mill. Press the beet mixture through the food mill. If desired, you may press this mixture through a tamis for further refinement.
Beat the eggs together. Temper with the sherry chevre sauce. Add this all to the beet mixture.
Pour the filling into the crust. Bake until the sides have puffed slightly and the center has barely set. Remove from the oven and cool for at least one hour before slicing.