The inspiration for this dish came from a recipe that I found at the Elle à table website called “Coco sushis de betterave et avruga.” The picture indicated hefty rectangles of purple toped with a layer of black caviar and two green chive sprigs. Reading the recipe I found that it was a beet aspic topped with imitation herring caviar. Nowhere in the recipe or the picture was there any indication why the first word in the title was “coco,” the French word for coconut.

The beet aspic is made from cooked beets; the common way beets are sold in France. I would normally roast one of my own, but that day I was either in a hurry or lazy, so I purchased a package that contained 8 small cooked beets that weighed a total of about 225 g (8 oz). These I peeled and threw in the blender along with 150 ml (scant 2⁄3 c) water, some prepared horseradish, and a splash of wine vinegar. Once the puree was nice and smooth, it was transferred to a bowl and weighed. I also weighed out a small saucepan with 100 g (3-1⁄2 oz) of water and set it on high heat. While this started to heat, I measured out enough agar to equal 0.9%, by weight, of the total mixture. This amount of agar yields a fairly stiff gel. The agar was sprinkled over the surface of the water and stirred until it was fully hydrated and mixed into the water, which happens when the mixture approaches 90 °C (195 °F). Once the agar was totally integrated, I added the puree to the water mixture, mixed the two completely, and poured the result into a small, rectangular, Japanese cake pan, and set it in the refrigerator to gel. My intention was to make small rectangular pieces, and this particular pan would yield about 16 pieces of just the right size.

When I cut the gelled slab of beet puree, I was disappointed. It tasted fine, but the edges tended to break when it was sliced so the pieces didn’t look all that appetizing. Luckily, agar is a thermo-reversible gel. All I had to do was reheat the pieces until they melted and then form them in a different manner. I decided to mold them. I used a cheap, lightweight plastic chocolate mold—I have since purchased a silicone mold that releases easier—and poured the hot liquid into the cavities until the liquid was level with the top of the mold. Any drips were ignored since they are easier to clean up after the liquid has gelled. The mold was placed in the refrigerator so the contents could gel.

When gelled, I found that the shapes didn’t just fall from the mold cavities like chocolate does from my hard-plastic molds. I needed to use my finger to carefully move the tops of the pieces side-to-side so they would loosen from the mold, and then slide a finger under the piece to release it. I broke a few but most came out fine. I could have melted the broken ones and molded them again, but I decided to eat them as a snack instead.

For serving, I used a small baller to scoop out a cavity in the top of the beet pieces. I filled the newly formed excavation site with caviar. I beat a little heavy cream until it would barely hold a shape and placed a small dab of it on top of the assembly to cover the caviar. The cream was in turn topped with a little more caviar. The whole assembly was garnished with a thin sliver of green onion top. I used spoon-shaped plates to serve the individual portions so my guests would not need to handle the assembly.

This time I used red beets, but any color beets could be used. Other colorful vegetables, such as carrots, would also work. Also, juice can be extracted from the vegetables and used instead of a puree. In this case, I would only use juice in the gel and not dilute it with water. If I used carrots, I think I’d use ground cumin to flavor it instead of the horseradish. With the beets, real wasabi, not the powdered stuffed, would also be nice.

My blender is strong enough to puree a golf ball. If yours is not, it may be necessary to strain the puree before mixing with the agar. I’m not against chunks, but I think a smooth texture works better with this preparation.

When making a solid gel with agar, it is usually recommended that the concentration be between 0.5 and 1.0%. By using an agar concentration of 0.9%, I created a pretty hardy gel, which is needed to withstand the handling the solid pieces get in this preparation.

The formula for determining the weight of a material to add to produce a particular concentration is W = C · M ⁄ ( 1 - C ), where W is the resultant weight to add, C is the desired concentration, and M is the weight of the original liquid. With small concentrations, such as in this preparation, the 1 - C term can be ignored without too much error.

I used plain cream for this preparation, but sour cream would also taste nice. I would probably whisk it before using so it was smooth when applied to the gelled vegetable. Of course, you could go the other way and whip the cream until it was stiff and pipe it onto the vegetable gel with a star tip. If a different colored vegetable is used, the cream could be colored with mild, ground spices such as turmeric for yellow or sweet paprika for red.

For the caviar, I used Russian pike caviar that I can get at a reasonable—some would say cheap—price. I store what I don’t use in the refrigerator in a bail-top canning jar with a rubber sealing ring—it’s salted and it hasn’t gone bad yet. I now have caviar on hand as a staple ingredient to use as part of my palette of ingredients. For the combination of ingredients in this dish, I think a dark caviar looks best, but with a different main ingredient color, a different color of caviar might be preferred.

Although I garnished the assembly with a sliver of green onion, I could of also have used a couple of small micro-green sprigs or a lavender flower, which is one of my favorite garnishes. (Unfortunately, lavender was out of season when made this preparation.)