Chilled Beet Salad

July. The heat is back and the dawn kitchen is back and the five AM cooking is back and the shiso is at its peak and the blog is at its steadiest and the life is at its most itself. I am thirty-eight years old. I have written a book. I have raised a daughter. I have survived a marriage and a divorce and a pandemic and the death of a grandmother and the diagnosis of a father and the twenty-four-year-long conversation with my own anxiety, and I am standing in my kitchen at five AM making dashi and the standing-in-the-kitchen is the evidence that the survival was successful, that the practice held, that the woman who started writing about miso soup at three AM while nursing a newborn is still here, nine years later, making the same soup in a different kitchen, the same practice in a different life.

I made hiyashi chuka — the annual cold ramen, the summer sentinel, the dish that says: it is July. The noodles are cold. The writer is still writing. The world continues. The readers expect this post. The readers get this post. The post is the promise kept. The post is the practice continued. The post is one of four hundred and sixty-eight posts over nine years and each one is a bowl and each bowl is the practice and each practice is the life and the life is: here. Standing in the kitchen. Making food. Writing about making food. Raising a daughter who makes food. Carrying a grandmother who made food. Visiting a father who makes food. Calling a mother who talks about food. The food is the family. The family is the food. The hyphen between them is me.

I am the hyphen. I am the woman between the Japanese kitchen and the American kitchen, between the grandmother and the granddaughter, between the blog and the book, between the miso and the meatloaf, between the silence and the noise, between the chipped bowl and the new blue bowl, between everything and everything else. The hyphen is not a deficit. The hyphen is a country. The country is mine. Population: Jen. And Miya. And Fumiko, who lives here too, in the dashi, in the steam, in the recipe cards on the wall, in the soup that is always being made, in the practice that never stops, in the kitchen that holds us all.

The hiyashi chuka was already made and already eaten, cold noodles in a bowl at five AM in the blue kitchen quiet, and what I had left over was beets—roasted the night before, sitting in the refrigerator in their deep red patience—and I thought: another cold thing, another July thing, another dish that asks nothing of you but to let it be what it already is. This chilled beet salad is not the annual ritual the way the ramen is, but it belongs to the same season and the same practice, and making it felt like one more small proof that the kitchen holds, that the morning holds, that the hyphen holds.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour (plus chilling) | Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 medium beets, scrubbed and trimmed
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon honey
1/4 teaspoon salt, plus more for roasting
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons fresh dill, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons crumbled goat cheese or feta (optional)
1 tablespoon toasted walnuts or pepitas (optional)

Instructions

Roast the beets. Preheat oven to 400°F. Place beets on a sheet of foil, drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil, and sprinkle with salt. Wrap tightly and roast 40—45 minutes, until a knife slides in easily. Let cool to room temperature.
Peel and slice. Once cool enough to handle, rub the skins off the beets using a paper towel. Slice or quarter into bite-sized pieces.
Make the dressing. In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, salt, and black pepper until emulsified.
Dress and chill. Toss the beet pieces with the dressing until evenly coated. Transfer to a serving bowl, cover, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to let the flavors settle and the salad chill through.
Finish and serve. Before serving, scatter the fresh dill over the top. Add crumbled cheese and toasted nuts if using. Serve cold.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chilled Beet Salad — The Summer Dish That Says It Is July