Sophie Grigson - Vegetables

Baked sweet potatoes are just great served instead of ordinary potatoes, split open and buttered, or topped with grated Parmesan or mature Cheddar, or soured cream and chives. I love them with bacon, with tzatziki, Greek yoghurt, and even tapenade. You might like to run up a snappy chilli and coriander butter for them (blend butter, fresh red chilli, coriander leaves and a shot or two of lime juice) or a classic French beurre maître d’hôtel (butter, parsley, garlic and lemon juice).

Sweet potatoes make a stunning mash– run the American route with this one, flavouring the mash with grated nutmeg and cinnamon, to highlight the warmth. Add a big knob of butter, plenty of salt and freshly squeezed orange juice which matches not only the colour but also the flavour. Don’t use milk in sweet potato mash – it just feels plain wrong.

Americans consider sweet potatoes (which they often call yams to confuse everyone else) an essential part of the Thanksgiving meal, served with the turkey and all the trimmings. Candied yams is a dish of sweet potatoes cooked with sugar and other flavourings (often orange juice and spices) to accompany the main course. Adding sugar to sweet potatoes? Overkill, unless we’re talking pudding. It’s certainly not an idea that appeals to me.

I’d far rather sautécubes of sweet potato, finishing them with salt and ground cumin and coriander just before they emerge from the pan, or perhaps grate them raw to make a sweet-salt version of rösti, so good with game or white fish. You can use all sweet potato, or mix it with equal quantities of ordinary potato, or grate in raw carrot, or beetroot for something altogether more fancy. How about sweet potato and beetroot rösti, topped with a little soured cream and herring roe caviar (or the real thing when you are feeling extravagant) to serve as a chic starter to a dinner party? Put me on the guest list right now.

Using vegetables in puddingsis not a natural activity. We’ve all grown used to carrot cake, but that’s cake, not dessert. Put aside any reservations you may have in the case of sweet potatoes. They mash down to such a moist smoothness that they work brilliantly in all kinds of recipes. Be bold and try the meringue-topped sweet potato pie below, and you’ll see what I mean. You could also enrich the mashed sweet potato with cream, butter and a little extra sugar to use as the filling for a two-crust pie, or to make a fool. I don’t see why you couldn’t concoct a superb sweet potato ice-cream if you fancied – then keep all your guests guessing the nature of your mystery pudding.

SEE ALSO KUMARA (PAGE 46).

Baking and boiling are all very well, but if you want to retain a degree of firmness to your sweet potato, then stir-frying is the natural choice. Stir-fry it on its own to serve as a side dish, but better still stir-fry it with lamb and salty Chinese black bean sauce for a quick feast, guaranteed to rev up the spirits, as it works the taste-buds.

For stir-frying I use either lamb leg steaks or chump chops, cut into thin slivers. The number of chillies is entirely at your discretion. I use medium-sized, medium-heat chillies here, to maximise the flashes of red in amongst the vegetables and meat, without totally blowing the roof out of my mouth. Tiny bird chillies are so ferocious that it would be wise to restrict yourself to one, foregoing the visuals in order to survive the heat. Unless, that is, you are a chilli fiend.

Serves 2–3

2 tablespoons sunflower or vegetable oil

2 cm (3/4 in) piece fresh root ginger, peeled and chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 or 2 red chillies, deseeded and cut into strips

1 sweet potato, weighing around 400g (14oz), peeled, thinly sliced and then quartered

125g (41/2 oz) green beans, topped and tailed and cut in half

225g (8oz) tender boneless lamb, cut into thin slivers

3 tablespoons black bean sauce

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

Get all the ingredients fully prepared and measured out, and set them out close to the hob. Put your wok (which should be a good roomy one) over a high heat. Once it starts to smoke, add the sunflower or vegetable oil, then add the ginger, garlic and chillies and stir-fry for 20 seconds or so.

Next add the sweet potato and stir-fry briskly for 3 minutes. Add the green beans and stir-fry for 4–5 minutes, until the sweet potato is tender and the beans are patched with brown. Tip all the vegetables out on to a plate and return the wok to the heat. When it is back up to prime heat, add the lamb and stir-fry for about 1 minute, until just barely cooked through. Return the vegetables to the wok and mix them well with the lamb. Add the black bean sauce and stir-fry for a final couple of minutes. Stir in the sesame oil. Taste and add a little more black bean sauce if you think it needs it.

What a splendid soup this is! Perfect stuff for a spot of cold weather (I’d be tempted to bring it out on Bonfire Night), with just enough lift from the lime and mint to stop it being dull. A whole star anise, by the way, has seven or eight ‘petals’ – useful to know if yours have collapsed in their jar.

Serves 6

1 onion, chopped

550g (11/4 lb) sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks

3 cloves garlic, chopped

4 cm (11/2 in) piece fresh root ginger, peeled and chopped

1 whole star anise

2 tablespoons sunflower oil

1 tablespoon tomato purée

1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon

150g (5 oz) red lentils

1.5 litres (23/4 pints) water or vegetable stock

juice of 1–2 limes

150ml (5 floz) soured cream

leaves from a small bunch of mint

salt and pepper

Put the onion, sweet potato, ginger, garlic, star anise and sunflower oil into a roomy pan and stir around. Place over a low heat, cover tightly and leave to sweat for 10 minutes, then add the tomato purée, cinnamon, lentils and water. Bring up to the boil, then reduce the heat and leave to simmer until the lentils and sweet potato are very tender. Season with salt and pepper.

Remove the star anise, then liquidise the soup or pass through a mouli-légumes. Stir in as much lime juice as you like. Taste and adjust seasoning.

Reheat when needed, and spoon into bowls. Finish each one with a little soured cream and a small handful of mint leaves on top.

This is far better than pumpkin pie. Don’t be scared to line the pastry case with clingfilm – it’s a pastry chef’s trick and it works brilliantly, lifting out perfectly every time. And no, it won’t melt either.

Serves 8

3 large sweet potatoes, about 1.5 kg (31/4lb) in total

300 g (11 oz) sweet shortcrust pastry

30g (1 oz) softened butter

100 g (31/2 oz) caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

a generous grating of nutmeg

4 tablespoons double cream

1 egg

3 egg yolks

Meringue topping

3 egg whites

150g (5oz) caster sugar