Parsnip-Beetroot Rosti

Always keen to reduce food waste, we try not to throw food away. I was left with a portion of beetroot ragu from this weeks dinners and some of the giant parsnip I had harvested a couple of weeks ago was sitting in the fridge. Root veg are built to store well at low temperatures so there is no worry of the parsnip keeping well, but with over 20 more similar parsnips left in at the plot we better get eating them!

A nice easy dinner is rosti. Usually made simply from potato and onion grated, pressed together into a cake and either shallow fried or baked. Parsnips work quite well in a replacement for potato as they also have a high starch content. However, as I wanted to add the cooked beetroot ragu I needed to add some sort of binder. I used 2 eggs and some chickpea (gram) flour. Chickpea flour is great in these sort of items (or e.g. fritters) as it has a nice nutty flavour and is quite high in protein. It is gluten free too if that is important to your dietary requirements. If you want to add beetroot only then raw grated beetroot would work well. If you used cooked (then grated) beetroot you will find a more stable rosti if you bind with the egg/flour too.

As an idea for quantities this was: 300g parsnip, 400g beetroot ragu, 1 medium onion, 100g chickpea flour and 2 large eggs. This made 6 good size individual portions.