This beetroot salad is very versatile as the base for a vegetarian or meat dish. It pairs beautifully with boiled eggs or feta cheese, and with meatballs, burgers, and sausages. In Sweden, it is a staple side dish on the Smörgåsbord or combined with meatballs as an open sandwich, as shown here.

For the salad, you can use both pickled and fresh beetroot, but the vinegar is key in any case as it adds an essential punch to the recipe. Make the salad a day in advance to allow the accompanying flavours to absorb.

I made two salads using fresh beetroot for one and pickled beetroot for the other. The former came out a vivid pink and the latter a pastel colour. 

Total time: 10 min if using pickled beetroot.

INGREDIENTS

1 jar of pickled beetroot or 250 g fresh beetroot
1 green apple
1 tsp Dijon mustard
½ red onion
2 tsp white wine vinegar (if using fresh beetroot)
100 ml or 5 tbsp mayonnaise
100 ml or 5 tbsp crème fraiche
Salt and pepper to taste

METHOD

Chop the beetroot, red onion, and green apple into small cubes. If using fresh beetroot, boil the beets with the skin on until soft (usually 40-50 minutes). Leave the tail and head while cooking. Replace the hot water with cold, leave the beets to cool, and peel them with your fingers. The skin will come off easily. Boiling the beets with their skin keeps the colour from escaping into the water and also makes peeling the beets a lot easier.

Add the mayonnaise and crème Fraiche to the chopped vegetables and season with salt and pepper. Mix the ingredients with a spoon and refrigerate before serving. Ideally, the salad is made the day before and refrigerated overnight to intensify the flavours.

16th Century Basel town hall is most notable for its vivid red sandstone facades and locally known as the Roothuus or the Red House. On my visit in 2019, I discovered the magnificent inner courtyard, decorated with frescoes and with a statue on the grand staircase of Roman Lucius Munatius Plancus, a contemporary of Julius Caesar.