Sweet potatoes are starchy and sweet-tasting. They are a root vegetable. We can find an abundant of these sweet potatoes - yellow, orange or purple - in our country. There are many ways of eating them. I like to peel, slice, coat them with a mixture of flour and fry them till they are crunchy. These sweet potato fritters are good as snacks. I also like to make sweet soup with them. Just chop them up into chunks, add water, ginger and pandan leaves and boil till the sweet potatoes are soft. Or they can be added to make bubur cha cha (https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/2474905339152109020/2823936632269896551), another sweet dessert. Sometimes, I like to mash them up to make sweet potato paste as fillings for my pau, bread or jian dui. Or, I just mash them up to be made into sweet potato balls. At times I just cut them into chunks to be cooked with rice into white porridge.
According to Healthline, there are many benefits to be gained from consuming sweet potatoes:
- Highly nutritious. Sweet potatoes are a great source of fiber, vitamins, and minerals.
- Promote gut health. The fiber and antioxidants in sweet potatoes are advantageous to gut health.
- May Have Cancer-Fighting Properties.
- Support Healthy Vision.
- May Enhance Brain Function.
- May Support Your Immune System.
Ingredients:
- 250 g orange sweet potato (without skin)
- 30 g brown sugar
- 80 g tapioca starch (or potato starch)
- 35 g melted butter (or corn oil)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- Oil for frying
- Steam orange sweet potato till they are soft.
- Once the sweet potato is soft, transfer it to a mixing bowl. Mash the sweet potato till it is smooth.
- Add sugar, tapioca starch (or potato starch), melted butter and salt to the mashed sweet potato.
- Reduce the amount of sugar (about 5 g) for a less sweet potato ball. Increase the amount of sugar (about 10 g) if you want them to be sweeter.
- If you want a more bouncy and chewy potato ball, then add more tapioca starch.
- Mix them up into a smooth dough.
- Heat up a pot with enough cooking oil (so that the sweet potato balls are fully submerged when they are being fried).
- Once the oil is hot, weigh 15 g of the sweet potato dough, roll it into a ball and drop it into the hot oil. Repeat this till all the dough is finished.
- Turn the balls gently so that all sides are cooked evenly.
- Once the sweet potato balls rise to the top and float, it means that they are cooked.
- Remove these balls onto a plate lined with parchment paper.
- Then remove them onto a serving plate.
- (Note: This recipe makes about 25 balls of 15 g each.)