Dear Katie,

I’m glad the soup was a success! It looks delicious and I appreciate all of the pictures of the process. Rainbow carrots are as tasty as they are gorgeous, and I think that might be one of the prettiest rainbow carrots I’ve seen. I was afraid that the soup might be time consuming but it sounds like it was pretty straightforward (aside from peeling the fava beans… your guess is as good as mine).

That soup might have exhausted my ideas for fava beans, though. I’ve never cooked fava beans but my understanding is that the fresh ones are an exciting and fleeting Spring treat, so I assume simple is best. If you have corn available, you could make succotash. I was impatient for corn season so I bought some corn from the grocery store last weekend. It was ok, but not nearly the sweet, juicy corn that’s available in peak season. However, I suspect that you’ll get good corn, and everything else, a bit ahead of me.

Now onto my main subject: beets (I’ll leave the bears and Battlestar Galactica to Dwight Schrute). For the longest time, I thought I didn’t like beets. When I tried them, I thought the dishes were okay, but would be better without the beets. So when I got beets in my CSA a few years ago, I wasn’t super thrilled about figuring out what to do with them.

This brings me to the most helpful resource that I continue to rely on for cooking with unfamiliar ingredients: How to Cook Everything. I have the iPhone/iPad app, which content-wise is identical to the cookbook, but with the added benefit of being searchable and allowing you to browse recipes by ingredient. In addition to having lots of recipes, it also has extensive information on equipment, techniques, and ingredients.

How to Cook Everything led me to the first beet recipe I ever cooked, which until recently was the only beet recipe I ever cooked (but I’ll save that story for later). This recipe made me a beet fan and now I’ll gladly seek out beets to cook with. Here it is!

Beet Rosti
Barely adapted from How to Cook Everything

1 1/2 pounds beets (about three medium)
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary (optional)
2 tablespoons butter

Remove the beet tops, then peel and grate the beets. In a large bowl, combine beets, salt, cheese, rosemary (if using) and half of the flour. Once the ingredients are well mixed, gradually add the rest of the flour until the mixture starts to stick together. Heat the biggest nonstick skillet you have over medium heat and add the butter. When the butter starts to brown, add the mixture to the pan and press it with a spatula to fill the pan. If necessary, split the beet mixture into multiple batches; you want the thinnest layer possible.

Adjust the heat if necessary to prevent burning and cook for 8-10 minutes until the bottom is crisp, shaking the pan periodically. To flip, slide the pancake onto a plate, put another plate on top, invert the plates, and slide the pancake back into the pan. Cook for another 8-10 minutes until the second side is crisp. Cut into wedges to serve.

A few notes: sometimes the amount of flour can be hard to pin down depending on how many beets you have. I stuck with the ratios from the cookbook here but I tend to eyeball the flour. After a few times, you’ll get a feel for what it should look like. I like the pancake to be as thin and crispy as possible, which maximizes the caramelization of the beets and mitigates the earthy flavor that beets can have if they’re cooked less. To that end, I usually make at least two batches with a 12 inch skillet. Grating the beets can be a pain so if you have a food processor with a grating disc, it makes it so much easier. The only downside is that you may end up dying some of your food processor red.

As for your other ingredients, my mind pretty quickly went to a stir fry. The bok choy obviously took me in an Asian direction and I think the greens (including beet greens if you have them) and garlic scapes would be a nice complement. Throw in some fresh ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, and Sriracha, or maybe just use a prepared sauce like teriyaki, sweet chili, or oyster. Serve with rice, and you’re good to go. I feel like we probably made something similar during the summers at Scripps.

I hope you enjoy the beet pancake as much as I do. Happy cooking!