In the last couple of years, I’ve become a bit of a sweet potato fan. I’ve got the t-shirt, the video, the rereleased greatest hits…well, no. But there’s nothing like a late discovery to encourage you to make up for lost time in the kitchen.
What is it about the lovely sweet potato? Its colour is a good starting point. That cheery orange that shouts ‘look at all this colour! I must be good for you!’ It peels easily. It chops easily. It even keeps pretty well, which helps if they do them on special.
What interests me is the consistency once cooked – how, quickly, it goes from a reasonably hard veg, not unlike a parsnip, say, then changes to a wonderful smoothness, yet with texture. You’re not just spooning it in – you can single it out in a dish. I like that.
Here’s where it gets trickier. As I move through my ingredient list, I realise I’ve already told you about sweet potato in risotto, sweet potato with mackerel. I can probably add a little note to say that sweet potato is good in Thai curry, but I kind of alluded to that particular version when I wrote about prawns.
What else? I’m rather keen on it with carrot, in a soup. On our first trip to the fabled ‘cottage with the upstairs’, I had my first attempt at roasting a chicken in an Aga, then making stock in one of the ovens. I then used the stock to make a soup with carrot and sweet potato – the richness of the stock against the different textures of the vegetables was a winner.
Dan is currymeister of the household, and we’re both rather fond of his veggie curry, now pared down to: carrot, parsnip, and sweet potato. The innovation has been to cook it fairly dry, and, more recently, change the cut of the veg to caramelise it more. A bit of cauliflower doesn’t go amiss here, but even without, it’s a treat for a Saturday night meal a deux. (If you get the chance.)
I know the classic is to serve it alongside turkey for Thanksgiving. I have not as yet tried cooking it with marshmallows on top. I do like turkey, and I might give it a go one of these days – happy with cranberry too, and many of the other Thanksgiving specials.
With its sweetness, I’m convinced that there must be some form of cake out there with sweet potato. Wasn’t there a go at it on Masterchef Professionals this year?
Give that carrot, courgette, beetroot all make it into cake format, there must be a cake – or at least a muffin. Ray Charles has sung of sweet potato pie – that’s maybe halfway there. And I’m sure my trusty cinnamon would work with it a treat.
I’m sure there ought to be more variations, but I’ve only been working the sweet potato thing for the last three years – much less time than a lot of the other ingredients. Give it time. The passion for it is there.