From How to Cook Everything:
Keep the heat moderate — cooking too quickly will burn the sugary outside of the pancake while leaving the inside raw. And don’t forget to wear an apron when you're grating the beets.
Ingredients
- 1.5 pounds beets
- 1 teaspoon coarsely chopped fresh rosemary
- Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup flour
- 2 tablespoons butter
- Minced parsley, a few rosemary leaves, or grates Parmesan cheese for garnish
1. Trim beets, and peel them as you would potatoes; grate them in food processor or by hand. Begin preheating 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat.
- 2. Toss grated beets in bowl with rosemary, salt and pepper. Add about half the flour; toss well, add rest of flour, and toss again.
- 3. Put butter in skillet; heat until it begins to turn nut-brown. Scrape beet mixture into skillet, and press with spatula to form a round. With medium to medium-high heat -- the pancake should gently sizzle -- cook, shaking pan occasionally, until bottom of cake is nicely crisp, 8 to 10 minutes. Slide cake onto a plate, top with another plate, invert the two plates, and return cake to pan. Keep cooking, adjusting heat if necessary, until other side is browned, another 10 minutes or so. Garnish, cut into wedges, and serve hot or at room temperature.
- Results:
- Salty, sweet, and buttery, this is basically beet hash browns. It was just a gorgeous treat to make, first of all. I used red and golden beets, so the shredded beets in the glass bowl with little bits of rosemary were just lovely. To make things "easier" on myself, I learned how to use the grater on my food processor. I say "easier" because there was a bit of a learning curve. But once Chris figured it out, it really was very fun -- the food processor makes a great whirring noise--and I didn't have beet juice all over my kitchen. I love that food processor.
- Burning the sugars in the beets before the beets are cooked through is a real possibility--I would aim a little lower on the heat (medium or medium low), and only turn it up only if things seem to need a little more oomph. Be patient. If you're the only beet eater in the house, I would say go ahead and make the full recipe--the leftovers, though less crispy, are still pretty tasty, and beets are a great source of vitamins. And cheap, especially now at the farmers market.
- Finally, don't get too hung up on the amounts listed here. The recipe I found online actually called for 2 pounds of beets for 1/2 cup of flour and 2 tsp of rosemary, but I'm pretty sure the recipe in the book said 1.5 pounds of beets for the same amount of flour and half the rosemary (which is what I retyped above)... basically, this can really be to taste as long as you've got enough butter and flour to make the mechanics work.
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