ALL SENSIBLE food-lovers are great believers in eating by the seasons. Yet there are certain foods that seem to lead double lives, in winter and in summer.

Beetroot is one of them. It’s a blessing in winter as a hot vegetable and it’s just as delicious in summer as a salad vegetable. Hot or cold, beetroot (Beta vulgaris) tastes sweet and complex, an almost candied juiciness mingling with an earthy, just-pulled-from-the-soil feeling.

According to my favourite trusty seasonal eating guide, Eat The Seasons (www.eattheseasons.co.uk), beetroot is in season from July right through to January, so we can experience a wide sweep of beetroot-eating possibilities for half the year.

The ones in the farmers’ markets are likely to be small at the moment and can be grated raw into salads, especially with carrots and lemon juice, or puréed into a beetroot “pesto” with garlic, parmesan, pine nuts and olive oil.

If you can find beets with good, fresh-looking stalks, cook the stalks separately — roughly chopped, as you would spinach — in a little water in a covered pan.

Boil the beets themselves, unpeeled, until tender (for an hour or more, depending on age and size), then cool and peel. If the kitchen is hot and you don’t feel like all that steamy business, buy ready-cooked beetroot, chop roughly and toss in a herb vinaigrette to go with something simple such as barbecued sausages, cold roast chicken, canned tuna salad or crisp-skinned mackerel.

CRISP-SKINNED MACKEREL WITH BEETROOT SALAD

Prep: 10 min
Cook: 5 min

Serves 4

8 cooked beetroot
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp red wine vinegar
Sea salt and pepper
2 tbsp mint leaves, torn
1 tbsp dill, chopped
8 small or 4 large mackerel fillets
1 tsp olive oil
100g feta cheese
½ tsp dried oregano
1 lemon, quartered

METHOD

Drain the beetroot, retaining a spoonful of the juices. Roughly chop the beetroot and toss in the juices with the olive oil, vinegar, sea salt, pepper, mint leaves and dill. Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan and cook the mackerel fillets skin-side down until the skin is well browned. Turn once and cook briefly on the other side. Using a slotted spoon, divide the beetroot and herbs between four dinner plates and crumble the feta cheese over the top.

Scatter with oregano and serve with the mackerel and lemon.