Earlier in the month we had a stab at using beetroot in the Yarg toastie. It was not totally unpleasant, so we fancied another go at it. Low and behold, an opportunity presents itself. This year we entered the Sandwich Designer of the Year competition, which involves making sandwiches out of various sponsored ingredients. One of these was beetroot and horseradish relish. Neat.

The remainder of the month may consequently have a few of these toasties peppered into it. This is a pleasant coincidence as I’d forgotten Toastuary and the Awards would overlap.

The relish itself is mostly fruity and sweet. You can taste the beetroot and the horseradish, but both are more mellow than I had expected. We started with some gentler flavours to see what would happen.

Beetroot Relish Toastie A

  • The relish
  • Sliced beef
  • Cheddar

Beetroot Relish Toastie B

  • More relish
  • Goat’s cheese

beetroot relish toastie construction

Taste.

Toastie A was interestingly moreish. The sweetness of the relish actually works well with a bit of beef. Perhaps if we went for a salt beef as a greater contrast it would work better, but I polished it off fast enough that it had to be regarded as a success. I consider this a starting point. 7.5/10

beetroot relish toastie - beef

Goats cheese is a very different flavour, but a classic match for beetroot. There was a whole lot of creamy going on, and arguably the flavours of the relish came out better here. It would need a few more components to actually make it onto a competition entry, but we should be able to manage that. 7/10

beetroot relish toastie - goat's cheese

Appeal

As we have previously noted, beetroot is a divider. Horseradish will have the same effect. Anyone that loves both will be onto a winner regardless of what we stash between those slices. 6/10

Suitability as a signature.

For something to be a signature, we would need to be making the main component ourselves. Still, local flavours and a strong British feel to the ingredients mean I wouldn’t want to totally rule it out. 4/10

Difficulty Rating

No additional cooking makes this a very simple toastie. Rated Easy.

As we would want to enter something good for this category of the Sandwich Awards experiments will be ongoing. We will keep you posted.