A Sweet Root

Potatoes, tapioca(cassava), yam(taro), artichokes - what do these have in common? They are all placed into the group of root vegetables. Actually it is only when I started 'researching' for this post that I found out that there are so many different types of tubers which are all categorized into this big group, but are actually from various parts of the plant. For more info, check out this from Wikipedia.


For this week's Weekend Herb Blogging, I'm using a starchy root - sweet potato. I think in some countries, sweet potato is called yam. But over here, it is easy to distinguish between these two tubers - yam is usually light purple and stubby, while sweet potato can range from white to yellow to orange, and with tapered ends. In many asian countries, sweet potatoes are widely used in making desserts and sweet 'cakes' like ondeh-ondeh(sweet potato balls with palm sugar filling) and other kuih-kuih.

Here I'm using orange sweet potato to make a sweet dessert - Sweet Potato Soup. It's very simple to prepare with a few ingredients and takes less than half an hour to cook. Sorry for the lack of exact measurements, since the amount of ingredients really depends on your taste and liking.

Sweet Potato Soup

1 sweet potato (about 350g, unpeeled weight)
A handful of dried longans
Some dried red dates
A small knob of ginger, peeled
4 to 5 blades pandan leaves, washed
About 2.5 litres water
Rock sugar or castor sugar

Peel sweet potato, wash and cut into cubes. Rinse dried longans and red dates. Pound red dates slightly(I use the handle of a cleaver). Place all the ingredients into a pot and bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium-low and cook until the sweet potato cubes are soft(about 15 to 20 mins). Discard pandan leaves and add sugar to taste. Serve hot, or chill for a refreshing dessert.




Don't forget to head over to Becky's from Key Lime and Coconut for the re-cap, where she's hosting this weekly event for this week. Of course, always remember to hop over to Kalyn's Kitchen for more details on WHB.