Beetroot Pkhali

Ingredients

• 1⅓ lbbeetrootcooked or oven-baked unpeeled
• 5¼ ozwalnutsground several times or pounded
• 1onionred or yellow, very finely chopped
• 3 clovesgarlicground together with the nuts
• 1 bunchfresh corianderfinely chopped
• 1 tbspwine vinegarfor acidity, to taste
• 1 tspground corianderalso as freshly pounded seeds
• 1 tspblue fenugreek
• chillito taste
• black pepperfreshly ground
• saltto taste
• 1¾ ozpomegranate seedsfor garnish
• 2⅛ ozceleryminced along with the vegetables (optional)
• 1 tbspvegetable oilfor frying the onion (optional)
• 2¾ ozhazelnutspartly replacing walnuts (optional)
• ½ tspground marigold (optional)
• 1 bunchparsley (optional)
• 1 bunchDill (optional)

Method

1. Scrub the beetroot well but leave it unpeeled and don't trim anything off, or the juice will run out. Either wrap each one in foil and bake at 390 °F for 50 to 90 minutes, or simmer in salted water until tender.
2. Let the beets cool, peel them, and squeeze out the excess juice with your hands.
3. Grate the beetroot finely, put it through a mincer on a coarse setting, or chop it small — it should stay noticeably coarse, so steer clear of a blender or food processor.
4. Pass the walnuts through the fine plate of the mincer together with the garlic several times, or pound them in a mortar to a fine paste.
5. Chop the onion very finely and, if you like, fry it in vegetable oil until golden. Wash the fresh coriander, pat it dry and chop it finely — add parsley and dill too, if you fancy.
6. Combine the beetroot, nut paste, onion and herbs in a bowl and season with ground coriander, blue fenugreek, half a teaspoon of Imeretian saffron if you have it, red chili, salt and black pepper.
7. Add the white wine vinegar and knead the mixture thoroughly with your hands until it's even and holds together. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
8. With damp hands, shape balls or small patties of about 50 g and set them on plates.
9. Scatter with pomegranate seeds and serve cold.

Tips and variations

You can use the beet leaves instead of the root — boiled, squeezed out and worked into the nut paste, with the cooking liquid stirred back in along with the vinegar; that's what's known as "red pkhali". Some of the walnuts can be swapped for hazelnuts, the onion can go in raw rather than fried, and you can leave out the garlic altogether and use celery and red onion instead. For a softer version, blitz everything in a processor with vegetable oil and season with parsley, cumin and khmeli suneli; a pinch of baking soda in the beet cooking water is also common. Serve it cold, ideally with mchadi — either as balls with pomegranate, or spread flat on a platter and patterned with the back of a knife, nice on a bed of mixed salad leaves.