Sweet Potato Cakes
(p. 32, Plenty)
Serves 4 (serves 4 hungry people - this makes a *lot*)
2 1/4 lbs sweet potatoes, cut into large chunks
Sauce
3 tbsp Greek yogurt
3 tbsp sour cream
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp chopped cilantro
salt and black pepper
2 tsp soy sauce
scant 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
3 tbsp chopped green onion
1/2 tsp finely chopped fresh red chile, or more if you like it hot
plenty of butter for frying
Assemble ingredients!
To make the sauce, combine all of the sauce ingredients in a bowl, mix well and leave to the side until you are ready to eat.
To make the potato cakes, start by steaming the sweet potatoes until completely soft, and then leave in a colander to drain for at least an hour. Trust me, you want to do this - it helps render the potato cool enough to touch and firm enough to fry. Too much extra water in them and these guys aren't too cohesive. I'm lucky enough to have a steamer - this made this task really easy. Set up, turn on, and walk away for a while.
Once the sweet potatoes have lost most of their liquid and are fairly cool to the touch, place them in a mixing bowl and add the remaining ingredients except for the butter.
Mix everything together, preferably by hand, until the mix is smooth and even. Don't over-mix - just enough so that you don't see any more white flour streaks and pockets is good. The mixture should be sticky and fairly firm. It if it is loose or runny, add more flour. I didn't have to add more flour to mine, but if you are going to, go in small increments, like a tablespoon, until you get where you need it to be. Too much flour will dull the flavour of the sweet potato. While I was mixing with my hands I was thinking of Cass' daughter Medea and how much fun she'd probably have doing this portion of the mixing and squishing... and then I realized her mother would probably not thank me for sticky sweet potato mash everywhere... ^_~ I was always encouraged to help with age-appropriate stuff in the kitchen. I think that is partly why I am comfortable in a kitchen and willing to try new cooking styles and flavours. I am hopeful that one day I can do stuff like this with my friend's kids. Anyway, back on point here...
Once the potatoes are mixed, melt some butter in a non-stick frying pan. I don't have no-stick, so this took a bit of finessing for me, but only a bit. For each cake, use a tablespoon to lift some mix into the pan and flatten it a bit with the back of the spoon. You're aiming for an imperfect disc, roughly 2 inches in diameter and 3/8 of an inch thick.
Fry the cakes on medium heat for about 6 minutes each side, or until you get a nice brown crust.
Remove from the pan and place between two sheets of paper towel to soak up the excess butter. Serve hot or warm, with the sauce on the side. Enjoy!
These are very tasty cakes. I find frying in butter to be both rewarding and frustrating. The reward is the gorgeous browned butter flavour that is a great compliment to the sweet potato... the frustration is how quickly browned butter can morph into burnt butter. I think if I were to make these again, I would omit the 1/2 tsp sugar (I found it unnecessary) and fry the cakes in a little olive oil instead. My favourite olive oil shop has a butter flavoured olive oil (sounds awful, right? It's not. It's some kind of strange magic, I swear), and I can see this recipe or others like it being a good application of that particular product. This recipe makes a lot... I got 16 good sized cakes out of it. I made four of them in the frying pan as directed by the recipe and then spooned the remainder into my silicone muffin cups and am baking them to firm them up a bit. The dip was okay, but I think these would be better with a sweet chili dip, or with the lemongrass-creme-fraiche dip that went along with the Sweet Potato Wedges. Regardless of the condiments, I'd make them again.
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