I haven’t done the Vegan MoFo Iron Chef Challenge in a few years, but since I happened to be home for this one, I thought I might do it! The challenge was to make something with beets- specifically the roots. It didn’t specify what kind of beets, so I used golden, which I prefer.

It’s hard coming up with something completely original with beets. I like beets okay, but they’re not my favorite vegetable. I haven’t done a whole lot of cooking with them, so in my mind, it was an original idea to put them in latkes… but it turns out that it’s not. I do think that what I did with them was original enough to enter into Iron Chef, so here it is!

On a bonus note, an omnivore friend of mine stopped by shorty after I finished cooking and tried them and thought they were “delicious.” So, omnivore approved!

This basically uses up one bunch of beets, perhaps a little less. You’ll want to roast at least 1 of them, and leave at least two raw. If it were me and I were to have some leftover beets from the bunch, I’d roast them. I like the simple directions for roasting in Appetite for Reduction. If you buy beets with the greens attached, save them! Beet greens are a fairly mild green that cook up more or less like spinach, with slightly more bite. They’d be nice alongside this dish, though I ran out of time to use them now. 🙂

There’s just something about stackable food that I like.

A nice bonus with these is that the beets, sweet potato, and onion are all from the farmers’ market!

Curried Beet and Sweet Potato Latke with Apple-Beet Chutney

For the latkes:

2 small-medium golden beets or 1 large one

1 large sweet potato, peeled

1 small onion

1/2 cup all purpose flour

2 Tbs ground flax mixed with 6 Tbs water

1 tsp to 1 Tbs curry powder (to taste)

1/2 tsp salt

Coconut oil, for frying

Grate the beets, potato and onion in the food processor or with a grater. Squeeze all the moisture you possibly can out of the grated vegetable. The onion will release the most moisture. Add the veggies to a mixing bowl. Add the flour to the veggies, and mix together with your hands. Add the curry powder and salt to the flax mixture and mix well. Dump into the veggies, and mix well with your hands. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a cast iron skillet. When the oil is shimmery and hot, start grabbing handfuls of the veggie mixture and shape into balls, about 1/4 cup at a time. Gently drop a ball into the oil, and flatten with a spatula. Do this with as many as will fit comfortably in the pan with out touching (I did four at a time in a 12″ skillet). Fry 3-4 minutes on each side, or until golden and crispy. Remove to paper towels when they’re done. You can put them in a 200F oven to keep warm, if necessary.

For the chutney:

1 medium apple, peeled/cored and chopped into 1″ pieces

1 roasted beet (roasted in 425F oven for a hour), peeled and chopped into 1″ pieces

1/2 of a small onion, chopped

1/2 cup apple cider or juice (or water + 1 tbs maple syrup)

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp salt

Add all the ingredients to a small saucepan and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, and then turn heat down to simmer for 10 minutes. It’s ready when the liquid is gone.

Recipe notes:

I used white sweet potatoes, not yams for this. The yam/orange sweet potato would also be nice in this as well, though I think you’d have to squeeze a lot more moisture out of them.

I also used red onion because that’s what I had from the farmers’ market, but yellow would be fine, too.

I used golden beets, but the regular kind would be fine too, I just hate working with the ones that stain.

Although this isn’t a canning post and that’s a small amount of chutney, chutney does lend itself well to canning, as it has a high acid content due to the vinegar!

I don’t know if I’ll have time to do the other Iron Chef challenges for Vegan MoFo, but I had fun with this one, and I really hope you try this recipe!