Balsamic Vinaigrette
Store in a jar with a lid and refrigerate. Shake well before serving. Enjoy!

Top tip about beetroot
The worst bit about beetroot is how it stains. Don’t use your best wooden chopping board - it’s best to use a plastic one. You can use those disposable kitchen gloves if you’re worried about your fingers of a designated pair of rubber gloves. Or if you can get your hands on the golden kind of beetroot, they taste just as good and you don’t have the same issue with staining!

Pomegranate molasses
This is a very niche product but a very delicious one to have in the cupboard. If you have a bottle, this is so lovely drizzled over the beetroot prior to them going in the oven. If you haven’t tried it before - it adds a sweet-tart, earthy, berry flavour to dishes. It's a secret ingredient in many meat dishes, and a little goes a long way. I love it in salad dressings: it adds a complex acidity to salad dressings, and you can mix it with oil instead of lemon juice. Also great in marinades: Use it to marinate chicken, lamb, fish, or beef, or as a glaze. Brush it over meat or poultry, or use it as a glaze for roasted vegetables . Also excellent mixed with sparkling water for a refreshing spritz, or add it to cocktails like a pomegranate fizz or whiskey sour. If you buy a bottle you will find lots of delicious ways to use it but I didn’t include it in the recipe itself as it is niche and I never want to build a recipe around something you can’t easily find wherever you are in the world.

For the lentils
Use brown or green lentils only as the red won’t work. I find it easiest to use the kind you get in the tin but of course you can also cook the lentils yourself and leave them to cool. You want them as dry as possible so don’t skip the step where you pat them dry or you won’t get really crispy lentils and the crispiness is the key.

Cook double the amount of lentils
I tend to always cook double the amount of lentils I need when I do this as I really love them and it just makes sense to cook once and then have extra to do whatever you like with. They stay crispy in an air tight container and I like sprinkling them on my salad the next day or eating them as a snack