Observatory cutlets
Next to potato cutlets, this is probably the simplest cutlet recipe I know. I discovered it when I went to visit an astronomical observatory in the Tian Shan mountains for a few days. During Soviet times the observatory was an important research centre and astronomers from all over the Soviet Union would visit to make observations. It was off-limits to the public then but nowadays it is open for private visits and the money raised is used to keep the centre going. Unfortunately, because of the lack of sufficient state funding in recent years, many of the installations have fallen into disrepair and sit unused and quietly rusting. The area is an earthquake zone and regular mild tremors knock the instruments out of alignment. Without regular maintenance by specialists, they become useless. The place has an eerie feel to it, especially at sunset when everything is still and the buildings and antennas cast strange shadows over the boulder covered landscape.
Despite the centre's relative decline, it is still an important venue for astronomers, due to it's geographical position and the crystal clear air and absence of light pollution high in the mountains. Astronomers still visit and help to keep the two or three remaining telescopes in working order as well as doing their research. At dinner the first day, we met a guy from Moscow who invited us to use one of the telescopes later the same evening. It was the first time I had seen the sky through such a powerful scope and I was impressed.
Talking of dinner brings us to the recipe. When we arranged our visit, I asked for vegetarian food and was assured it would be no problem. After a morning scrambling about on the mountainsides around the observatory, we returned famished. Lunch on the first day was beetroot cutlets with rice and salad and it fairly hit the spot. I asked the cook how she made the cutlets and she told me that she simply mixed flour with grated beetroot. 'How much flour?' I asked. She said she didn't really know - just enough to make the bits stick together. It sounded like my sort of recipe. The following day we got carrot cutlets made in the same way and they were equally good. You could probably use grated potato or cabbage too, but I haven't had time to try it.
I think some of my other recipes make better cutlets but these are so quick and easy to make and they are not bad at all. When I tried out the recipe I found that more flour made the cutlets a bit heavy, whereas less made the mixture rather loose and difficult to handle. I would go for less flour and use a spoon to put a blob of mixture into the pan and flatten it out, rather than trying to mould the cutlets by hand. Once they start cooking they become quite solid and easy to deal with.
Ingredients
2 medium beetroots (raw)
2, maybe 3, dessertspoons of flour
Salt
Vegetable oil
Peel and grate the beetroot and mix in the salt and flour. Heat
the oil in a pan and drop in a couple of dessertspoons of mixture for each cutlet
and flatten it out with the spoon. Fry on a medium heat for about 5 minutes
each side. Don't use too much oil as these cutlets will soak it up and become
rather greasy.