“The Beet Harvest” is a realistic impressionist painting by Belgian painter Emile Claus from 1890. It’s a large canvas, measuring 3.30 m by 4.80 m, which places the viewer almost up close with the beet harvesters. The piece is part of the Flemish Masterpiece List. The often-idyllic portrayal of rural life and harvest was translated by Emile Claus into an image of the laboring and struggling farmworker, connected with the landscape around the Leie River. With this, the painter wanted to depict the unity of man and nature. Eighteen years after his death, in 1942, his widow permanently donated the canvas to the Museum of Deinze and the Leie Region.

It reminded us of a recipe by Bijdendijk from the Rijks restaurant: a beet millefeuille with parsley oil.

1. Make parsley oil by blending 250 ml of oil with a bunch of parsley on high power in a food processor for 2 minutes. Then strain it through a sieve and a muslin cloth, season with a bit of salt and pepper, and cool uncovered within 5 hours to below 7°C.
2. Slice the beets into wafer-thin slices, stack them on top of each other, and tie them up with kitchen twine.
3. Place the tied beet bundles upright in a pan. Add 1 liter of beet juice until the beets are halfway submerged. Bring to a boil and cook for half an hour. Flip the beets and cook for another half hour.
4. Reduce the heat and let the beet juice reduce into a syrup with the beets still in the pan.
5. Make a sauce by bringing 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, 30 ml of cream, 1 tablespoon of seru dashi, 4 tablespoons of sushi vinegar, and 1 tablespoon of dry white wine to a boil, then whisk in 100 grams of cold butter cubes to create an emulsion.
6. Briefly warm the beet bundles in the oven and glaze them with the beet syrup.
7. Carefully place the beet bundles on four plates. Mix the sauce and parsley oil together, and pour the sauce next to the beet.

Biet-Joris-Bijdendijk-fotocredits-Jan-Kees-Steenman

This dish embodies the simple power of seasonal ingredients with a refined technique—much like Claus’s painting, which captures the depth of rural life in all its beauty and hardship. Enjoy!