Beets by José

A poke bowl like no other!

People of Longer Tables, 

Today I wanted to share with you a taste of one of my favorite vegetables, a dish that we used to have on the menu at Beefsteak (which, if you’re in DC, you need to go and try our new Spring Menu…!). It’s an amazing combination of bright flavors and colors, inspired by the famous Hawaiian dish called poke with a starring role given not to raw tuna but to deep purple marinated beets!

This bowl was actually created by our head of R&D Charisse Grey, who I wrote about last week. (I told you she is amazing!) Charisse is from Hawaii and she makes a face when we use the word “poke” to describe this dish because to her, poke is marinated fish, and NOT BEETS. But I told her…Charisse, if I call this dish “marinated beets and rice” no one would get excited about it, so she agreed that we could call it poke. But you should know…she was not happy about it! 

The thing is my friends, whatever you want to call this, it’s delicious, and a great meal for the whole family. Kids will love it because it has those flavors of soy, sesame, and ginger that are so delicious and easy to love. You can serve it for lunch, dinner, brunch (throw a fried egg on it…?) or just snack on the marinated beets. The recipe is pretty simple, I think, but it does take a little advance planning to make because the beets have to marinate overnight. Let me know what you think of it! 

Beet “Poke” Bowl

Serves 4