Monday, April 27, 2009

Curried Sweet Potato Bites

If reading about or watching mischievious kids brings a smile to your lips then you may enjoy this tale I have to share with you. Recently my father was narrating stories about his boyhood and some of the incidents from that time that stayed with him. He had this story to tell me about one of his friends. His friend wanted to accompany his own grandparents on an outing. His grandparents refused and told him to stay home, so his friend felt very upset and thwarted. As soon as the grandparents left, my father's friend decided to play some mischief...... he sneaked into their kitchen and rearranged all the spice containers, most especially the ones containing salt and sugar. The next day when his grandmother went to make coffee in the morning, she, out of habit, grabbed the container she thought contained sugar, and without checking used it in her coffee, little did she know that she was using salt instead of sugar......you can probably guess how the rest of this story would have gone.....:-)

After having a hilarious laugh about this incident, and sympathizing with the plight of the poor grand mother, who I am sure, never expected such a retaliation from her grand son, the very next thought that crossed my mind was amazement how such ideas seem to occur to some people, such ideas have never occured to me so far, and I am sure they will not occur to me in the future either. I guess I am far more boring than a lot of other people....:-)

Talking about ideas, here is one idea that made me really happy. I was in the process of cutting sweet potatoes to make curry with it. The plan was to make the traditional south Indian style dry curry (poriyal ) with it, seasoning it with some mustard seeds and split black gram lentil, when suddenly the thought struck me to bake these potato cubes.

I followed through with the idea and was so happy with the results. R has extracted a promise from me that I make this style of curried sweet potatoes more often than the south Indian style one I had initially planned to make ......If you are into sweet potatoes the way I am these days, here is a different type of preparation with them that I think you may enjoy:-)




Click here for a printable view of this recipe

Ingredients and method to make curried sweet potato bites
3 1/2 cups cubed and peeled sweet potatoes (5 medium sweet potatoes approx)
3 tsp oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp chilli powder (optional ) (or according to taste)

For the spice mix,grind together after roasting
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 red chilli
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds ( methi seeds)

Pre heat oven to 400 deg F

Dry roast each of the ingredients mentioned in the spice mix and cool, then powder finely in a spice grinder or blender and keep aside.

Place the peeled and cubed sweet potatoes in a large bowl and add salt, chilli powder, ground spice mixture and oil to it. Mix well.

Place the spiced sweet potatoes in a large glass dish, where the potatoes can be spread out and are not piled one on top of the other.

Bake for about 15 mins.

Then increase the heat to 425 deg F and bake for another 15 minutes or until sweet potatoes are done and begin to crisp

Serve hot with soup, or as a dry curry or use as a filling in sandwich or eat as is, as a yum snack with some ketchup on the side.

Notes
I made mine soft with a hint of crispness (with a total baking time of 30 mins) You can bake them longer to get a more crisp and crunchy exterior. Do remember to keep checking on the potatoes when they are getting baked, since the thickness of the cubes will determine how long it takes to get done.

Since this one is my own recipe I send this dish off to Original recipes event being hosted by Lore

48 comments :

Chutneytales said...

Yumm..yum..yum..

Indhu said...

those sweet potato bites look so crispy and crunchy... I can easily imagine myself gobbling up an entire batch :)

Mahimaa's kitchen said...

yummy curry.. i love sweet potatoes.. usha, it's been long since we chatted.. dont u come online these days? what happened?

Unknown said...

wow.. nice & yummy.. delicious..

Anonymous said...

Loved reading the first part Usha..
ANd the curry looks awesome..colorful and yummy

Subhie Arun said...

loved reading ur writes....between swt potato ..looks grt n yummy

Shama Nagarajan said...

mm..lovely ones

Chitra said...

Ooooh, drooling:)

Archana said...

boys can come up with anything !! nice recipe...looks really yum...

Anonymous said...

really yummy sweet potato bites!

Ramya Vijaykumar said...

Sweet and hot its utterly delicious... Nice pic...

Vishali said...

love the weet potato bites!

USha, I have passed u an award. Plz accept it.

Pavani said...

I love sweet potato fries, I'm sure I'm going to like these too. Will try.

Gita Jaishankar said...

They look so crispy and yummy Uma, nice flavour combination :)

Gita Jaishankar said...

Oops, I mentioned your name wrong in my comment, sorry about that dear!

Suparna said...

Hi Usha,
healthy option to bake the sweet potatoes. They look absolutely crip n toothsome. nice pic.Great blog and good collection to return to :)
TC

Cham said...

Great recipe and tasty too :)

Lisa Turner said...

I've baked sweet potatoes before and really enjoyed them. Love your choice of seasoning.

FH said...

Kids love all the snacks made of potato and cheese, this would be a great hit too! :)

Ashwini said...

Nice flavourful sweet potato..Yum Yum

Anu said...

Baked sweet potato looks yummy! Loved the cute story :)

Priya Sriram said...

Thats a great idea and recipe to prepare curried sweet potatoes Usha! Looks yumm! :)

Manju said...

yummilicious!! i can keep eating them and finish a whol bunch of them without even knowing :D

Priya Suresh said...

Yummy curried potatoes, just love it!

Archy said...

never tried sweet potato bites.. this looks so gud !!

Rajee said...

Drooling. Glad that you remind me of sweet potato. Yeah, I found somewhere and lost it. Now I found you.

Soma said...

LOL:-) i am with u in the boring category..

that curry looks really unique, i like the spice combination u have used here.

chef and her kitchen said...

I m not into much of sweet potato cooking..looks like i need to give a try..yummy yummy...

KonkaniBlogger said...

We are on a baked potato bite spree these days, my son just loves it! Got to try with the sweet ones now. Are these the orange ones or the cream color insides (like the indian ones)??

Amy said...

Yum! These sound amazing!

gtyuk said...

nice anecdote, hope you haven't added sugar instaed of salt here, heehhe?

yummy prepaartion :)

miss v said...

i've been getting sweet potatoes in my organic box, and i'm always looking for more 'savory' recipes. i'm definitely going to try this one.

Vani said...

Funny story! :) sweet potatoes look great!

Lore said...

You may not think about changing containers but you sure come up with great recipe ideas! Creativity comes in different shapes ;). I can only imagine the wonderful aroma that took over your kitchen while the potatoes were baking :). Thank you for sharing your recipe with the Original Recipes Round-Up!

Deepa Hari said...

Potato looks yum and healthy Usha...Nice post....enjoyed reading it.

Deepthi Shankar said...

Thatz really really yummy

Pavithra Elangovan said...

ITs looking so yummy and who dont love potato? I am going to grab it. Nice pic

Mangala Bhat said...

wow! usha really nice and healthy post..thank u

A_and_N said...

LOL @ your grandmom :)

Must try recipe. Love sweet potatoes :D

Unknown said...

good one..have some sweet potatoes..will make it a less spicy..hope my son likes it..

AnuSriram said...

Lovely recipe... Looks delicious!

Varsha Vipins said...

Cool..this is yum..minus all the oil used for frying n roasting,the baking method seems so healthy..:)
LOL on that story.I could do that even now..hehe..:D

Parita said...

Hi Usha, first time here...i love sweet potatoes and yours look healthy and crispy..i can have all it by myself :)

Sharmila said...

That sounds like achari aloo .. am sure the sweet potatoes would taste great in that spice mixture. :-)

Vaishali said...

Usha, what a lovely way to cook sweet potatoes. Am always on the lookout for great ways to eat this wonderful veggie. Thanks for the recipe!

Anonymous said...

Hi Usha... Hey Sweetcakes!!!! I love sweet potatoes, do you like UBE as well?

dejamo said...

Those look delicious, and like many here I am always on the lookout for good sweet potato recipes.

I also switched the salt and sugar containers when I was a child. I wasn't even mad at anyone, I just wanted to see what would happen. Mom got mad, end of story. Not funny even years later ;)

Vidya said...

Hi Usha, my first time here, got here via the culinarty round up. Amazing and so very creative. This reminds me of the potato karacurry. Will definitely be trying this :)

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