This vibrant recipe inspires me to visit Mexican architect Luis Barragan’s colourful architecture, but colour is deeply associated with Sweden’s cultural heritage as well.

This is a colourful and healthy beetroot pesto, packed with flavour, yet kindly mild and creamy. It perfectly pairs with pasta as in this dish but also deserves taking centre stage as a dinner party canapé on a salty cracker.

I especially love beetroot for its colour, which depending on how you choose to cook it, ranges from a deep purple to a vibrant pink. There are beetroots of a range of colours, but for this, I am using the common red one. For Swedes, beetroot is as natural as the Falu Red paint, which decorates many traditional and modern Swedish houses.

Serves: 3-4    Total time: 50-60 min

INGREDIENTS

Serves: 3-4
Total: 50-60 min
Including 40-50 minutes for cooking the beetroot

250 g raw beetroot
100 ml good olive oil
1 garlic clove
50 g Parmesan or Grana Padano
2 tbsp lemon juice
Handful of pine nuts
Salt and pepper to taste

Tips: Make sure to use fresh beetroot. Make double the recipe and store in the fridge for a second dinner. If you like, serve it with grated Parmesan and more pepper.

METHOD

Trim the tops of the beetroots but leave a bit of the stem and the skin as otherwise, much of the colour will escape. Wash and add to a pan with enough water to cover them fully. Bring to a boil, and then reduce to a simmer. Cook until soft depending on the size of the beets. This will take approximately 40-50 min.

Drain the beets and allow them to cool off. Then peel and chop them roughly before adding them to your food processor together with the other ingredients. Whiz and you will have a pesto feed up to four as a main dish of 8 as a starter.

Falu copper mine in Sweden from my visit in 2015, now a World Unesco Heritage Site. The red paint for the buildings was made with minerals from the mine.

Falu red is still the most commonly used colour for traditional buildings in Sweden and is part of our Swedish cultural heritage. The paint lets the timber breathe and move naturally.