Rosti (n) /roh-stee/ - anything shredded and fried in a portland basement

This falls under tasty and somewhat messy. It follows the rule that "even if you don't generally like something, it probably tastes good fried." If you like celeriac and radishes, so much the better.

Celeriac and Radish Rostis

Ingredients:

1 celeriac bulb (sub 3 large potatoes if you prefer)
1 bunch radishes (approximately 250g)
1 small bunch carrots (approximately 300g)

4 tbsp all-purpose flour
salt / pepper to taste
1 tbsp sprinkleable thyme
1 tbsp finely diced (or granulated) garlic

4 individual tbsp olive oil

Shred carrots, radish bulbs, and peeled celeriac bulb into a good sized bowl. Squeeze excess moisture out of mixture (use the bottom of another bowl, or squeeze handfuls of the mixture over the sink. Trust me, this helps). Mix flour and spices into the... mix. Take a picture.

Did you take your picture yet? Here's mine. Yours doesn't need to include a dish brush.

Prep a plate to receive the rostis by layering some paper towels on it. Add one tablespoon of the olive oil to a large, flat pan over medium-high heat. Create smallish patties of the shredded mixture and gingerly place them in the oil once the oil is warm (shimmery). Use a spatula or similar device or you may get injured and I may get sued. That would suck.

Take another picture.

Cook patties for approximately 3 minutes on each side, waiting until underside is brown and crispy before flipping. If you nudge one of the rostis and it moves easily in one piece, it is probably ready to flip.

These ones aren't quite ready to flip.


Here are some flipped rostis. Note the lovely brown color, like McDonald's hasbrowns. If they look like Denny's hashbrowns, you probably should have waited. Actually these ones have some burnt spots... maybe I waited too long? Nah, I like burnt spots.

Scoop out the rostis once they are finished on both sides and place them on the paper towels. Remove any excess bits if you are worried about them scorching, add more olive oil and more rostis, and repeat until the shredded mixture runs out.

Blot and serve. Serving suggestions: Some sort of creamy topping, such as sour cream or a creamy aoili, would be great. They are similar to potato pancakes, so if you have a preferred serving style for those, it should apply. The carrots will make them mildly sweet, maybe like sweet potato pancakes.

I had mine with an avocado aioli mixture, similar to the dipping sauce I use when eating artichokes, except with avocado.

The recipe is add ingredients to a bowl and mix. The ingredients are one avocado, two tablespoons of mayonaisse, a splash of soy sauce, a splash of balsamic vinegar, a few grinds of black pepper, a smidge of spicy mustard, and a tablespoon of diced garlic.


Mush up and enjoy.

This color indicates I added too much soy sauce and balsamic vinegar. The mayonaisse may have also been extraneous given the creaminess of the avocado. If you try it, let me know what you think.

Apple Galette: Redux

Last time it was funny, but tasty. This time, just tasty. I made a new Apple Galette because I still had a ton of apples. This time I used a wider mix of apples (red delicious, fuji, granny smith), more cinnamon, no nutmeg (though the nutmeg wasn't exactly a bad idea; just wanted something cinnamony instead of nutmegy this time), lemon juice (instead of limeade), and caramel.

The caramel was homemade using awesome organic sugar and organic whipping cream. I didn't take any pics of it simmering, but its not exactly a special recipe, so I give you permission to JFGI.

For more about galetting, check the previous post. This one is going to be about pictures from here on. The images are larger than usual, so feel free to click on them for some closeup appley goodness.

Sauteed Mixed Greens, Rice Pilaf with Scallops, and Roasted Beets with Onions

Tonight I made a large dinner, fairly simply, over the course of an hour. I used scallops, rice, olive oil, butter, cream, flour, salt, pepper, beets, chard, kale, rosemary, leeks, onions, and garlic, most in somewhat random amounts. This was the end result:


And boy is it good.

For the beets, remove the beet greens and set them aside, then place the beets in a foil packet with chopped onions (they'll be quite tender so take that into account when chopping), garlic, and whatever spices you like, as well as some olive oil. I stuck a healthy swatch of fresh rosemary in the packet this time. Then cook the packet in the oven at 450 degrees for 40 minutes. Sizzle sizzle.

For Pilaf, simply saute some chopped onion in a saute pan with a lid, then brown some rice lightly with them. I used long grain jasmine rice; any long grain rice will do, some wild rice added in isn't a bad thing either. About 1/4 onion per cup of rice, once the rice is lightly browned add two cups of broth for each cup of rice, and bring to an active boil. Once boiling, place the lid on the pan and reduce the heat to simmer (medium-low to medium heat). Check after 10 minutes (a glass lid is quite helpful here), the pilaf is finished when all moisture has been absorbed into the rice. I garnished mine with chopped leeks, chives also work for this.

The greens are a simple saute with a roue. Heat oil in a pan until water flicked into the pan sizzles and pops. For chard, you can give the big stems the foil packet treatment like I did, or just start cooking them first. Once the stems have a good head start, add the leaves. Some time after the chard leaves, you can add thinner greens like kale (I generally remove the stems) or even leeks. Beet greens are probably last on this list, since they don't take much time to cook at all. I cook my greens until they are really done, but you can "stop early" if you like your greens a little crisper. I add water during the process to sort of steam the greens, if the pan still has oil in it this can cause some splatter so be careful. When the greens were almost finished I added some wine, cooked that off, and then pulled them out of the pan.

I deglazed that same pan with a little more wine and some water, and then plopped in half a dozen scallops. I seared them on both sides, let them absorb some of the tasty moisture, and then set them on top of the pilaf. I added some more water to deglaze the pan again, and once everything was off the bottom I added some cream and flour to make a simple sauce. I pour the sauce over the greens, but it would have been good on the pilaf as well I'm sure.

You can fit this on a plate however you like, but I put the scallops on top of one side of the pilaf, the onions from the beet packet on top of the other side, and the greens (with the "gravy" on top) on the other side of the plate. The beet got its own home between them, and the chard stems (from a separate packet) ended up being my seconds.

All of these recipes are really simple and substitutable, I could have easily used chicken instead of scallops for example, and any combination of greens would have worked.