Sweet…sweet potatoes! Our older generations were linked very closely with this nourishing and pleasantly sugary, sweet potatoes that we Sri Lankans referred to as “Bathala” in our native language. It’s a very common fact that in each of our districts in Sri Lanka, that there is a village, a city, a road or a mountain that has been named, starting with the word “Bathala”. It’s not a secret that we are a nation that is very close and familiar with many varieties of “Ala-bathala” (different kinds of potatoes-sweet potatoes in our daily diet).
It’s severely raining these days. After harvesting the previous seasons rice crops, now again the time has come to prepare the earth for the new season’s sowing. Every field has been renewed, dug, prepared and filled with water, awaiting for the planting of new crops for the next new season. Since the entire paddy fields are filled with water, they look like a small lake in front of our house. Since it’s the rainy season, the soil has become soft and moist, and it was very easy to pull out sweet potatoes. Me and my Brother pulled out lots of sweet potatoes enough for 2-3 days. These dark purplish and reddish skinned sweet potatoes are my favorite but the yellow color sweet potato variety gives a magnificent color once boiled.
I cooked a sweet potato curry for lunch. Reduced the curry completely and tempered with a hot “themparadu“ (tempered mixture) and decided to make an okra and peanut fry as well. I added the same spicy mixture which I have tempered the sweet potatoes with, to the fried okra and mixed peanuts into the mixture as well. The okra fry came out exceptionally tasty with an equal balance of salt and sugar added to it. Apart from these dishes, since it’s Grandmother’s favorite, I cooked a cabbage white curry, a cucumber and tomato salad and red chicken curry as well.
I had few yellow sweet potatoes left at home and used two of them also for my sweet potato dessert. Boiling sweet potatoes for the dessert was not a practical idea as when you boil them with water they become more mushy once watery. At that time brother came to the kitchen to burn(roast) some sweet potatoes for him. He was spot on, because I got the sweet potatoes I kept for the dessert, also wanted to get burnt and done by his help. To tell you the truth I also love to eat sweet potatoes burnt under hot amber charcoals. In fact when sweet potatoes, eaten roasted under hot charcoals, they gives an unusual rich and sweet flavour than the boiled ones. My thought was that may be because the water get absorbs into the sweet potatoes in the boiling process with water. I ground the burnt sweet potatoes and also added two egg yolks mixing well. I garnished the dessert with pumpkin seeds and made into whirl shape and baked it in the wood oven. After tasting that I decided to make the same dessert again and again whenever I get sweet potatoes as it was irresistible rich, sweet creamy and sweet like sweet nectar from flowers.
Love you All!
Nadee
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Sweet potatoes! Good with aromatic spices as a curry as well as a Sweet dessert
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乡村烹饪 cuisine de village गाँव का खाना बनाना cucina del villaggio طبخ القرية Dorfkochen 村の料理 dorp koken 마을 요리 pagluluto ng nayon деревенская кухня cozinha da vila ഗ്രാമീണ പാചകം cocina del pueblo গ্রাম রান্না vesnické vaření landsby madlavning ចម្អិនអាហារតាមភូមិ kylän ruoanlaitto गाउँ खाना पकाउने masakan desa கிராம சமையல் masakan kampung หมู่บ้านทำอาหาร gotowanie na wsi köy pişirme làng nấu ăn ရွာချက်ပြုတ် μαγειρική στο χωριό villa coctione
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