I always have mixed feelings about the end of summer, sad to bid farewell to the sunshine which has at last made a timely appearance but delighted to great the new ingredients that Autumn brings, the cooler weather is the perfect excuse to get creative with comfort food in the kitchen. Most excitingly root veg, I know i'm a complete geek getting excited about vegetables but really, I do love them. Beetroot has always been one of my favourites, I sometimes forget about it and am then delighted to re-discover it and dream up new ways to prepare it, swap carrots for beets in your carrot cake, roast beetroot instead of potatoes for your Sunday roast or, make a low maintenance lunch with this beetroot and feta rosti.
I love dishes you can just pop into the oven and leave to their own devices. This is a lazy dish and should be treated as such, don't get to caught up in the measuring of grated vegetables or worry too much about presentation, eat it straight out of the pan and forget the airs and graces.
I've further plans to create this dish with various other root veg over the next few months, parsnip, butternut squash, celeriac... anything goes.
You will need...
- 3-4 beetroots, around 250g grated weight
- 1 medium potato, around 125g grated weight
- 1 medium onion, around 40g grated weight
- 1 Tablespoon cornflour
- Thyme - a couple of sprigs of
- olive oil
- Feta cheese, around 50g
- A couple of large eggs
Pre-heat oven to 180°C/165°C fan/Gas mark 4.
Grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin or liberally oil an ovenable pan of equal size. (A small note on this, I like to serve this straight out of the pan but it does stick, so if you want a clean sliceable finish go for the lined cake tin option.)
Grate the beets, onion and potato, either in a food processor or by hand. mix together with the cornflour, thyme along with a good pinch of salt and pepper. Transfer the mix to your chosen bakeware and press the mix into the tin.
Add a drizzle of olive oil to the top and place into the pre-heated oven. Bake for 25-30 minutes then crack the eggs directly onto the rosti and crumble over the feta. Bake for a further 5-10 minutes or until the eggs are cooked through and the feta just a little golden in colour.
Allow to cool for 5 minutes or so before removing from the cake tin/diving into the rosti straight out of the pan. Serve with obligatory greens.
This serves 2 as a brunch/light lunch or 1 very greedy person, like myself, as a main meal anytime of the day.
