To make the apple sauce, peel, core and roughly chop 500g of apples, then put them in a saucepan with 500ml of water and bring to the boil. Let them simmer until completely soft – about 10 minutes – stirring occasionally. You can add a pinch of sugar if they are too tart. Set aside.
Peel, then coarsely grate 250g of parsnips into a medium-sized bowl, then do the same with a small, raw beetroot. The best cutter for this is the medium grater of a food processor. Peel and coarsely shred 1 medium-sized onion.
Warm a shallow film of olive oil in a non-stick frying pan, add the onion and cook for 10 minutes or so until soft and pale gold, then remove from the pan and add to the grated roots.
Break 2 medium-sized eggs into a bowl, lightly beat them with a fork, then mix them with the grated roots. Do this as lightly as possible to stop the mixture turning pink. Season with salt and black pepper.
Peel and grate a thumb-sized lump of ginger to a paste. Finely chop a handful of parsley leaves, then stir both into the grated roots and onion. Sprinkle in a couple of generous pinches of Aleppo pepper flakes.
Squeeze a handful of the mixture into a patty about the diameter of a digestive biscuit and twice as thick. Place into the hot oil, then repeat, making as many as will fit comfortably in the pan. As the patties start to brown on the underside, flip them over with a palette knife and cook the other side.
Lift the cooked rostis out on to a hot dish and keep them warm. Replace them with more until all the mixture is used up. Serve the hot rostis with the apple sauce. Serves 2-3. Ready in 1 hour.