Baked Sweet Potato Dessert

My work has brought me to researching the baked potato growing in the past year. Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a warm climate loving vegetable, botanically not related to the potato (Solanum tuberosum). I found out that in many countries sweet potatoes are grown by small farms and consumed a lot as street food. Often simply baked and as a dessert rather than as a savoury dish. In Europe it is grown on a small scale in south of Spain and in south of Portugal.

The sweet potato growing industry is getting more focus, meaning that more resources are spent on research and variety development. The growing consumer demand is driving larger scale industrial farming of sweet potato. I have seen sweet potatoes imported from Isreael, USA, Spain, Egypt on sale in supermarkets and farmers´markets here in Switzerland. The global easy access to exotic fruits and vegetables and the pressure on innovation has placed sweet potatoes into most new cookbooks. The wider awareness of the American Thanksgiving dinner outside the United States has brought the sweet potato onto dinner tables in Europe. Sweet potato crisps can be found in niche selection in supermarkets or eco-groceries.

I felt it my duty to get to know the vegetable I was researching a bit closer. I can say that sweet potato is great in soups, a delicious accompaniment to roasted lamb and a Thanksgiving turkey.

 

 

Baked Sweet Potato Dessert
Ingredients for one portion (multiply by as many portions as needed)
1 sweet potato per person, ca. 100g each
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp crème fraîche

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Wash the sweet potatoes and pat them dry with kitchen paper.
3. Stab each sweet potato twice with a fork.
4. Place the sweet potatoes on a baking tray and cook in the oven for 60 minutes until you can feel they are soft.
5. Cut them in half, spread 1 table spoon of honey on each half and serve with crème fraîche.

The effort in preparation of this dessert is almost next to nothing. Bake the sweet potatoes in the oven while preparing the rest of the meal and spreading a bit of honey and cream is a matter of two minutes. Worth a try.

 

Caldo Verde – Portuguese Cabbage and Sausage Soup

Soup triggers a lot of emotions in many. Some just love soups and would eat some soup every day. Others occasionally have soup as a light meal. Then there are those who consider soup as non-food and avoid eating it as much as possible. Some treat soup as something served in a soup kitchen. Some Moms want their children to eat soup as soup is healthy.

Personally, I tend to prefer soups that have pieces in them to purée-soups. Maybe because I like to eat the soup rather than “drink” it.

I was fascinated to read that there was a soup festival, a Soup Congress, in a small Portuguese town earlier this year where restaurants served some 50 different soups. How cool is that!!

I don’t have any scientific evidence but I do believe that soup is healthy, good for digestion, warms the body, and usually involves one or more vegetables. Chicken soup is good against common cold and so on.

A little thing that I don’t like so much is that some soups turn into a colour that is somewhere between dull greenish brown, despite being absolutely tasty. Then, some fresh green parsley or chives or a little cream or some fried bacon can pimp it up to please the eye as much as the taste buds.

Green and Purple Kale and Cavalo Nero (Tuscan black cabbage)

October - November is the peak season for various cabbage soups and here is one from Portugal. The popular “caldo verde” or green broth, made with potato, couve de gallega or  kale and sausage. I have used leafy curly kale cabbage, but if that is not available, collard greens or Savoy cabbage will also do. Caldo verde is perfect since it is both puréed and has some pieces in it at the same time.

Curly Kale

Kale cabbage

Caldo Verde Recipe

Serves 4

2 l water

1-1.5kg potatoes

1 onion

500g of green (leafy) cabbage, kale

200-300g Portuguese linguiça, chorizo or other sausage

Salt

(bay leaf)

Heat the water in a large pot. Peel and cut the potatoes into cubes and boil.

Add chopped onion, some salt and optionally a bay leaf and cook until potato is soft. Remove the bay leaf. Purée the mix into smooth soup.

Separate the kale-cabbage leaves from the core and cut into very thin strips. Add the kale into the soup and cook at medium heat till cabbage is soft for ca 10 min.

Cut the sausage into slices and add to the soup. Simmer a few minutes together with the cabbage.

Choose the spicy sausage or spice up the soup with a bit of chilli powder when using mild sausages.

Some recipes advise to cook the kale separately; however I prefer that everything from the cabbage stays in the soup.

Caldo verde, Portugal

Serve hot.

Bom apetite!