roasted potato & beetroot salad

If you have been following our blog, you would have discovered that I love roasted kiphler potatoes and I love labne. My garden is facing an ageing crisis at the moment as a lot of my produce has gone to flower due to not enough time spent nurturing it. So, determined to start afresh, I spent the afternoon pulling, ripping, chopping and digging. Thankfully, I could salvage some of the remains, a crop of ballooning beetroot and some baby ones I planted recently.

So, for dinner, I decided to incorporate these into a warm salad with those spectacular crunchy, crispy kiphler potatoes tossed with a fennel infused labne. If you cannot find labne, which is a Middle Eastern cheese made from yoghurt, I have included a recipe for it below. As I have mentioned in a previous post, I use one from ‘Barambah Organics’, which is a Queensland company.

ROASTED POTATO & BEETROOT SALAD

ingredients 

the desired quantity of kiphler potatoes, halved

 baby beetroot, halved or larger ones in chunks

olive oil

flaky sea salt

pinch whole fennel seeds

2 – 3 rosemary sprigs, chopped roughly, including stalks

1 or 2 generous scoops of labne

preparation 

1. Preheat oven to 220 degrees Celsius or 200 if you have a hot oven.  Line a flat baking tray with baking paper.
2. Toss potatoes in a generous splash of olive oil, rosemary, fennel seeds and a good pinch of salt.  Add beetroot and toss to coat in oil.
3. Place in a single layer with flesh side down on the baking tray and bake for 15 minutes, then turn over and bake for a further 15 minutes or until golden brown.
4. While still warm, transfer vegetables to a serving bowl and add generous scoop or 2 of labne.

Serve as is, or add chopped fresh mint for extra flavour.

how to make labne (yoghurt cheese)

1. Take a container of a good quality Greek-style yoghurt. and place in a colander or preferably a muslin-lined sieve and place over a bowl to drain. Place saucer on top along with a 500g weight and refrigerate overnight (this will press out as much liquid as possible).
2. Discard liquid from bowl and roll labna into small balls or large blobs if prefer.
3. Place the balls in a jar with good olive oil, flaky sea salt and add ¼ tspn fennel seeds (optional, but very tasty). Store in fridge.

Other seasonings can be added if prefer – thyme sprigs, whole black peppercorns, whole dried chilli, rosemary sprigs, etc. The olive oil from the labne can be used as well, particularly in the above recipe when tossing the potatoes.