This is a recipe I make quite often but have just realised I have never posted on this blog! Since I need it for a collection of recipes I’m making elsewhere, I thought I’d better post it now, even though I don’t have any photos with which to demonstrate it’s unbelievable pinkness…
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7 orange sweet potatoes of a moderate size (you will be serving one potato per person as a main so don’t get the gigantic ones) 1/4 cabbage, preferably savoy 1 beetroot 6 spring onions (the green kind) 100 g frozen peas 2 really nice apples juice of 1 lime 1/2 cup yoghurt or sour cream 1 tsp smoked paprika pinch cayenne pepperNow What Will You Do With It?
Pre-heat your oven to 200°C
Prick six of the sweet potatoes all over and place in the oven on a rack. I strongly recommend putting a tray on the rack below, as they tend to leak black lava when they are nearly done. You can cook them directly on a tray, but the skin is nicer if you cook them on a rack.
Bake for 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours – I’m sorry, but sweet potatoes vary enormously in their cooking time, so you will just need to test them periodically to see if they are soft yet.
While the potatoes cook, make the coleslaw. First, get out a huge bowl and slice the spring onions into it. Cook the peas, drain, and add to the bowl. Shred the cabbage finely (if you have a food processor, use it!), grate the beetroot and the sweet potato, and add them all to the bowl and mix.
Juice your lime, slice your apples and dip them in the lime juice before adding to the cabbage mixture. Then beat the sour cream or yoghurt into the lime along with the cayenne and smoked paprika and add the lot to the vegetables. Mix well, and let stand until the potatoes are cooked. Everything will be very, very pink. You can also make the coleslaw in advance.
When the potatoes are done, serve them in their jackets with a little butter, salt and pepper, and a lot of coleslaw. Colourful! You can eat the skins, by the way, and they will be all caramelised by the oven, so I think you should.
Variations
To make this vegan or dairy-free, you can use Tofutti sour cream or cream cheese instead of the sour cream. It works just fine. This is an excellently low-GI main, incidentally. You could have the coleslaw with ordinary baked potatoes, of course, or you could make it even wilder with red cabbage. I’ve done both these things. It’s pretty much yummy no matter what you do with it.
The coleslaw keeps for a couple of days in the fridge – which is good, because you do get a lot of it out of this recipe. The baked potatoes can be reheated in your microwave at work if need be.