Although this is certainly not my highest rated Blue Apron Recipe that I've reviewed so far, I would at least make the salad again, albeit with a few slight tweaks that I'll discuss below. What impressed me most was the simplicity of the carrot, beet, and arugula salad, and the wonderful colors that appeared in the final dish. Just look at that photo!
I haven't eaten beets for a while, so I honestly didn't know how to cook a raw beet to make it not just edible, but tasty. Turns out, they have a pretty good flavor on their own. Note: This is not the arugula that I'm used to buying in the store. It tasted much less nutty and spicy, an the shape of the leaf was different as well. Maybe it's baby arugula.
This dish actually involved a lot of tedious preparation. Cutting the lemon and grating the rind was time-consuming enough, but I also had to peel and cut up four different root vegetables (including garlic). Well, I didn't bother peeling the carrots.
I made this recipe a week after the delivery date, so the beet was already a little soft by the time I got to it. Oops. I still boiled it and was able to get this cool shot pouring out the water.
This is what the marinade looks like. We're supposed to let the beets soak in this while we prep and cook the other food. I'm not convinced that this actually does much. It doesn't seem like enough time to actually impart any flavor on the veggies. They also recommend that you pour the whole mixture into the salad as well, so what's the point?
Here's where I would make my main alteration next time for the carrot, beet, and arugula salad: LESS LEMON!
Wow, the salad was pretty lemony. If you soak the beets in the lemon juice, don't pour the juice in the salad. If you don't soak the beets, maybe use just 1/4 of the lemon instead of the whole thing.
Pan fry the carrot slices until slightly brown, then add a 1/4 cup of water. For some reason I couldn't figure out how they got the carrot slices to look so “angled” for the Blue Apron photo. This is what I was able to get. Oh well. At least they tasted alright.
…and here's where I messed up this recipe, and perhaps it's why the fish didn't turn out so flavorful. I mixed the flour and the spice blend together, then fried the fish. I was supposed to just coat the fish with flour, salt, and pepper, then add the spice at the end, when the salad was finished.
The fish turned out really dry and flavorless. More salt next time, and maybe less cook time.
Preparing to make the salad…
Isn't that a beautiful color!
The finished product.
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