Savory Carrot Pancakes

One of my favorite ways of coming up with a new dish is to start with a classic and then think of new ingredients I can make it with. The inspiration for this dish came from a Swiss Rösti, which is usually made from shredded potatoes with the occasional addition of onions for flavor. I've made Rösti with sweet potatoes before, but I wanted to see if it would work with other root vegetables.

Carrots don't contain much starch, which means they won't bind together on their own, and they won't get quite as crispy, but they do have a lot more flavor than potatoes. So to hold everything together and contrast the natural sweetness of the carrots, I decided to use cheese, along with a small amount of potato starch as the binder. Cheese can also crisp nicely once all the water in it has evaporated.

The result was these gluten-free carrot pancakes that were super tasty. The sweet carrots and onions make for a marvelous contrast to the salty cheese. Together, they form a crispy crust on the outside while remaining soft and gooey on the inside. Depending on the cheese you use, it can get salty, so you may or may not need to add the salt.

One thing to be aware of is that it's not going to form a batter after you've mixed everything together, so just make sure the cheese is evenly distributed, and it will melt and hold everything together once it's in the pan.