Rösti casserole with baked eggs: a recipe

To keep the whole Thanksgiving-induced food coma rolling right along, I give you this rösti casserole.

(Geek sidebar: perhaps the greatest thing about this post is that I remembered the HTML special character code for generating a lowercase o with an umlaut!)

According to Wikipedia, the source of all unquestionable truth on the always unquestionably truthful internet, traditional rösti is a Swiss dish, made primarily of shredded potatoes, that ultimately ends up looking like a big potato pancake or latke. This riff on it is a hearty casserole, courtesy of Cooking Light.

Please do not judge rösti unfairly, based on my crappy-ass photo (I thought my photography was improving a bit, but food is hard, man!). This casserole is seriously satisfying vegetarian winter comfort food (isn't that practically an oxymoron?). It's got it all -- creamy, cheesy goodness with crispy potato crustiness, topped with protein-packed eggs.

Rösti was originally a farmer's hearty breakfast, but this is a great dinner dish, too, when served with a nice green salad.

En Guete!

Rösti casserole with baked eggs (adapted from Cooking Light)

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups fat-free Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cups grated peeled turnip (about 8 ounces, 2 small)
1 1/4 cups (5 ounces) shredded Gruyère cheese
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup chopped fresh chives
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 (30-ounce) package frozen shredded hash brown potatoes, thawed
6 or 8 large eggs
Additional ground black pepper

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine yogurt and flour in a large bowl, stirring well. Add turnip, cheese, butter, chives, 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, pepper, nutmeg, and potatoes to yogurt mixture and mix well. Spread potato mixture evenly into a 13 x 9–inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 30 minutes or until bubbly. Remove from oven. With the back of a spoon, make 6 or 8 indentations* in top of potato mixture. Crack 1 egg into each indentation. Return dish to oven. Bake at 400° for 8 minutes or until egg whites are firm and yolks barely move when pan is touched. Cut into individual portions (one for each egg). Sprinkle with black pepper and serve.

* Using six eggs makes large, dinner-sized portions, while eight eggs yields smaller, breakfast-sized portions.