There are two truly wonderful things about working in restaurant kitchens. One, the sheer volume of people that you get to work with, like fellow cooks, and guests, and farmers, and vendors, and dishwashers, and delivery truck drivers, and on, and on. Two, that every one of those people can teach you something new about cooking.
Arguably the national dish of Switzerland, rösti is a crispy-edged potato pancake, effectively hash browns in skillet form. Most traditionally, rösti is made by browning grated potato in a hearty amount of goose fat or butter (or both if you’ve really been hitting the Alpine peaks). It’s meant to be cut into wedges and shared, compared to something very much akin to a latke, which is individually sized and often bound with egg and flour, neither of which are needed here.
One day, in the restaurant, we were thinking up a menu item that would use up a glut of potatoes, that was also vegan and gluten-free. Allison Scott brought up the technique of using cornstarch to bind a root vegetable cake, because she had learned it from Josh Kulp and Christine Chikowski when she worked for them at Sunday Dinner Club in Chicago. We ended up blending potatoes with sweet potatoes because Beth Eckles from Green Acres in Indiana had come in earlier that day with the most delicious tubers we’d ever tried. We added dill because a guest over-heard us talking and said that his grandmother was Polish and always used dill and sour cream in her latkes. We piled greens on top because everything is better with a pile of greens, especially to balance out a big spoonful of sour cream. It was our version of stone soup with everyone adding just a little bit.
This dish is a play on that original collaboration. Sweet potatoes naturally walk the line between sweet and savory. So do apples. Both love black pepper, so I go a bit heavier here than in most recipes. You could gild the lily by adding a handful of grated cheddar or raclette to the top of the rosti before it goes into the oven, but it isn’t necessary. Or you could serve cranberry sauce on the side to make it extra wintery-festive.
This is what we make every year the night we decorate the house for the holidays. I pull out the raclette machine, fry up some rosti, and tuck in for a cozy night, thinking of all folks who have shared their recipes, their food, their time, and their labor to help make dinner better. —abraberens
Every month, in Eat Your Vegetables, chef, Ruffage cookbook author, and former farmer Abra Berens shares a seasonal recipe that puts vegetables front and center (where they should be!). Missed an installment? Head here to catch up. —The Editors
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