Vegetable Cookies

An idea whose time has come

This week I stumbled upon Turkish cooks who post recipes on a YouTube channel Tastes From the Village. (I encourage everyone to check it out, as all of the recipes are tasty, easy, and made with humble ingredients. Many of them are vegetarian) I was inspired to try one of the recipes that has no name (the original recipes never seem have names, just testimonials like more delicious than meat or I cook this when I don’t have time) but which I am calling “vegetable cookies.”

I recall there was a trend a number of years ago to sneak vegetables into desserts and baked goods for kids. I doubt kids fell for it, since young palates are exquisitely calibrated and ready to detect any change in flavor or texture, however imperceptible. As a child I thought adults were absolute billy goats, always letting different foods touch each other on a plate, or thinking that nuts in brownies were acceptable. They were also seemingly unable to discern the tiniest traces of alien ingredients in canonical desserts like cookies.

These are not however cookies with vegetables sneaked in; they are cookies made out of vegetables. They are savory, and so more akin to a gougère, savory scone, or some other similar hors d’oeuvre, but they don’t need to wait for company. We hovered nearby in anticipation, enjoying the intoxicating smell emanating from the kitchen, and ate them right out of the oven like you would any cookie.

The only other savory cookie that generated this level of enthusiasm was the batch of horse cookies (that is, cookies for horses) that I made for some foot-legged friends at the barn.

Horse cookies out of the oven. These were made of oats, carrots, and molasses. They were a huge hit with equine taste testers,

Those treats were made with carrots and oats, and if you have a horse friend who would enjoy them I would be happy to pass along that recipe as well.

Vegetable Cookies

Ingredients:

2 zucchinis
1 Idaho baking potato
2 carrots
1 medium onion
2 tablespoons parsley
2 tablespoons of dill
1/4 cup of 1 corn flour (I used potato starch)
1 teaspoon of baking powder
salt & pepper (you can also add red pepper flakes to taste)
1 cup + 2 tablespoons of flour
2 eggs.

SAUCE: 1 cup of plain yogurt, to which you can add salt, pepper, and dill, or salt, pepper, and diced scallion

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment.

Using a box grater, grate zucchini, carrots, and potato, let stand for a few minutes (I sprinkle a little salt on the zucchini to help bring water out) then squeeze each type of grating very hard to get all excess water out (as an experienced latke maker, I do this twice, to make sure). Finely dice the onion. Finely chop dill and parsley.

Add all of these ingredients into a big bowl, together with flour, salt, and pepper, baking powder, corn flour (or potato starch) and eggs and mix well.

Scoop a slightly larger than a golf ball size of batter and shape into a cookie-like dome. Place on parchment. This is a truly unusual recipe as it requires no oil or butter on the sheet, and the cookies don’t stick!

Repeat with the remaining batter - you should end up with two dozen cookies, or two cookie sheets’ worth.

Put in oven and let bake until golden brown. This takes longer than a conventional cookie. For me it took over half and hour to get to the right golden look on top, and my oven runs a little hot. Best to keep an eye on them.

While the cookies are baking, you can make the dip, which is just to mix some yogurt with some salt, pepper, and scallion. You can also add dill, but the cookies have a lovely soft dill flavor, and dill in your dip could be overkill.

I can’t tell you how incredibly good these were. You have to try them to believe me. They are best eaten warm out of the oven.