Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour (broth) + 30 minutes
 

Preparing the baby vegetables and Chioggia beet

1. Peel all the vegetables, halve the baby carrots and cut into a point with a pencil sharpener; do the same for the asparagus spears and mini turnips.
2. Using a small knife, cut the radishes and mini beets into a point. Set aside the trimmings for the vegetable broth.
3. Peel the Chioggia beets and cut four 1.5 cm (1/2") slices. Reserve the rest for the vegetable stock.

Vegetable broth

1. Peel the onion, celery and 1/2 carrot and add the trimmings from the baby vegetables.
2. Crush everything and place in a saucepan; cover with cold water and cook gently for one hour.

Cooking the mini vegetables

1. Heat a little butter in a sauté pan; add the mini carrots and roll in the butter for 1 minutes. Season then add some hot vegetable stock. Cook quickly, uncovered, and check the doneness of the carrots with the tip of a knife. It should pierce the carrot easily, but still leaving the carrot very slightly crisp.
2. Do the same for the radishes and mini long turnips (together), the beets and asparagus separately, and at the end of each cooking process, drain the vegetables, reserving the liquid.
3. Cook the peas and little leeks in boiling salted water.

Preparing the Chioggia beets

1. Heat a knob of butter in a sauté pan, add the beet slices and sweat for 1 minute on each side; add vegetable broth just to cover; season.
2. Cook for about 20 minutes; test for doneness with the point of a knife and when cooked, remove and place on a plate. Reserve the cooking liquid in the pan.

Herb salad

1. Prepare all the herbs and greens by removing any large stems. Place in a small bowl.
2. Pick over the flowers and remove any wilted ones.

Tomato-herb nectar

1. Put the four tomatoes through a juicer; reduce the juice in a saucepan and reduce very slowly to preserve the juice's red color.
2. Remove the stems from the parsley, chervil and cilantro and cook in boiling salted water for 5-6 minutes.
3. Refresh the herbs in cold water, then purée in a blender. Incorporate the olive oil to the purée in a small bowl and season.

Finishing

1. Using a small cylindrical cutter, cut holes for the mini vegetables in the slices of Chioggia beets and arrange the mini vegetables in them.
2. Place the decorated slices in the sauté pan and heat everything through, covered, with the juice from cooking the beets.
3. Meanwhile, reduce the various juices from the mini vegetables, add a knob of butter and a drizzle of olive oil and reduce until slightly syrupy; season.
4. Season the salad with a drizzle of olive oil.
5. Using a small spoon, make little dots of tomato-herb nectar on the plates, place the decorated beet slices in the center and sprinkle with the herb-flower salad.
6. Drizzle the reduced cooking juice over the middle.