Recipe and Photos by Nadia Tamby

This might sound very involved but the only part that takes some attention and time is making the spring onion jam. You can prep everything days in advance and throw this together in a few minutes the night you are serving it. If you’re like me, you’ve been getting a bunch of spring onions in your CSA box for a couple weeks now. I usually wash and thinly slice all of them and store them in a container to use throughout the week. I garnish meals with the green parts and use the white parts in breakfast hashes and anywhere you might use onions. Despite tossing them into everything from salads to scrambled eggs, I am still left with too many. Make this sweet-savory “jam” and use it on cheese/charcuterie boards, on salads, on toast with eggs. This isn’t exactly a real “jam” in consistency but rather caramelized green onions, so I usually just put the hot mixture into small jars and refrigerate them. They keep fine in the fridge for a month as long as you are careful to use a clean spoon.



Ingredients:

• 1 bunch golden or red beets (reserve greens for another use, trim ends)
• ½ lemon (zest and juice)
• Fresh goat cheese
• Toasted hazelnuts
• Drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil

Jam:

• 2 tablespoons butter or olive oil
• 2 bunches spring onion, sliced thinly (trim off roots and dry ends)
• ¼ cup white wine (anything will do, sweet or dry)
• 4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• ½ teaspoon black mustard seeds
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt

Instructions:

Roast the beets for about 45 minutes at 425F. I wash them and wrap them in foil (forget seasoning them at this point, you’re going to peel them after anyway), and roast until they feel firm but can be pierced with a knife. Let them cool a bit and peel them by rubbing the skins off with your hands. Slice them and drizzle olive oil, lemon juice and zest on them. They can be stored for a few days like this in the fridge to soak up the lemon flavor.



Make the “jam”:

In a small pot, heat up butter or oil and sauté the green onion until soft but not browned. Add the mustard seeds, sugar, salt, apple cider vinegar and white wine and cook on low to medium-low heat stirring until most of the liquid evaporates. Taste and adjust salt or sugar or vinegar to your liking. If your jam seems more like soggy green onions, simply add a few more tablespoons of sugar and let it caramelize the greens a little more (and let more liquid evaporate).



Serving:

Serve the beets on a platter with a few dollops of spring onion jam, a smear of goat cheese on the plate, and top with toasted hazelnuts (toast whole nuts on a skillet for a few minutes until they smell nutty, then give them a rough chop). Drizzle extra olive oil and season with salt and pepper.