Root Vegetable Rostis

And yet, the root vegetables keep appearing, every week a pile of muddy parsnips and carrots peeking from the vegetable box. Only this week there was a massive swede coming along for the ride, enough to send you over the edge, I tell you.

So, on Saturday morning, reading cookery books as per usual, I came across a Bill Granger recipe for potato and feta pancakes. I adapted this (a lot), left out the feta and used parsnip, carrot and swede and what a success! The egg binded them perfectly to form sweet little cakes, perfect with baked beans and a fried egg for breakfast. Although I'd eat them wherever you'd normally have potato.
I'm thinking these would be good with a handful of grated cheese thrown into the mix or courgettes and feta in summer.

Ingredients

Serves 4

500g root vegetables, grated. Try potato, parsnip, carrot, swede, turnip, squash or pumpkin
1 onion, grated
2 eggs
45g flour
4 tbsp vegetable oil

• Put the grated vegetables in a colander with a liberal sprinkling of salt and leave for 30mins.
  
• Meanwhile whisk the eggs in a large bowl and add the flour. Add the vegetables to the bowl squeezing out as much water as possible as you go. Stir well and season.
• Heat the vegetable oil in the pan and add about 2 tbsp of mixture to the pan for each rosti, you should get about 8.
  
• Make sure the heat is on medium and leave the rostis to fry for 4-5mins on each side until golden brown.

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Swede Chips

We're really into winter now, every week we continue to get more and more root vegetables. Whilst I've had great success roasting parsnips and carrots, I'm still not sure what to do when faced with a swede, of course you can always throw it into soup or stew and grated, it makes a great addition to slaw. I've tried making mash, but I wasn't so convinced although its definitely marked as something to try again.


These swede chips however, did work. Swede wedges roasted with plenty of seasoning and a bit of garlic until golden and crispy, then a little cheese grated over. Perfect, try them in place of potato chips for a vegetable hit.

See recipe here.


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Beef, Mushroom and Guinness Stew

Another gem utilising my slow cooker. Inspired by this article by Nigel Slater we used cheap chunks of braising steak slow cooked with mushrooms, plenty of sweet onions and carrots and Guinness, to counteract the slight bitterness of the Guinness, I added a couple of tablespoons of prune jam that I had in the fridge, any other fruit jelly or sauce would work well, such as apple sauce, to give a rich and round flavoured stew.

Of course something this warming, with copious amounts of gravy cries out for a mash of some kind. As it is so rich, I'm thinking some kind of root mash would work well or colcannon. We had swede chips with ours, sweet and crispy they worked perfectly with the stew.

Ingredients

Serves 4

750kg stewing beef, cut into chunks
5tbsp flour
2 onions, finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
2 cloves garlics, finely sliced
250g mushrooms, sliced in half
1 sprig thyme
1 can Guinness
150ml water
2tbsp redcurrant jelly or apple sauce
1 small bunch chopped parsley to serve

• Heat a large casserole on the hob.
• Meanwhile sprinkle the flour over the beef with plenty of seasoning, turn the beef and make sure its well covered.
• Add a little oil to the pan and fry the beef in batches until brown all over. Remove and set aside.
• Add a little more oil and fry the onions and carrots over a low heat for about 10mins. Add a splash of water to the pan and scrape the bottom to lift of any sediment.
• Add the thyme, bay leaves, mushrooms and beef to the casserole with the Guinness and water.
• Cover and cook in the oven at 170C for 2 hours until the beef in meltingly soft.
• Stir in the apple sauce and season to taste.
• Serve sprinkled with parsley.

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Venison Sausages with Mash and Mushroom Sauce

Mmm... this was a seriously decadent, rich and comforting dinner. We got some venison sausages with our veg box this week (they were on offer). Naturally we immediately thought of sausage and mash and I had a little braised red cabbage in the freezer. It was the wine and mushroom sauce (inspired by our Abel and Cole Cookbook) that really made this into something extra special even though it was cooked in the time it took to boil some spuds and grill the sausages.

Ingredients

Serves 4

20g dried mushrooms
250ml stock (chicken or beef)
50g butter
1 red onion, finely chopped
250g mushrooms (preferably a mix of wild and chestnut), sliced
250ml port or red wine
1tbsp cornflour

Make your sauce whilst the spuds are boiling anf you grill the sausages.

Cook the onions in the butter for 5 mins until soft
Turn up the heat and throw in the mushrooms, fry for 5 more mins until starting to turn golden.
Pour in the port and allow to bubble away for a few mins until most of the liquid has gone.
Mix the cornflour to a smooth paste with a little water and slowly stir into the pan. Add the stock, bring to the boil and cook a for another few minutes, stirring until the sauce thickens, add a little more stock or water if the sauce gets too thick.



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