Is your Easter dinner menu set? Let me throw you a curveball.
As I write this, I’m looking on the ocean from our rental home on the attractive island of Kauai. One of many pleasures of cooking right here is together with Okinawan candy potatoes with each dinner after we’re not consuming out.
If mashed potatoes are in your Easter menu, swap your same-old, same-old potatoes for these gorgeous, deep purple tubers and take bows.
Also called Hawaiian candy potatoes or Hawaiian purple candy potatoes, these distinctive potatoes are creamy beige on the skin and magenta on the within when uncooked and deep purple when cooked, with a honey-like candy taste and a really dry, starchy texture.
Botanically they’re within the morning glory household and never really associated to the potato. In contrast to bizarre potatoes, this one isn’t a nightshade vegetable.
It’s believed the Aztecs launched the Okinawan candy potatoes to the Spaniards, who then introduced them to the Philippines and China within the 1490s. By the 1600s, they reached Japan the place they had been planted in Okinawa after which all through Japan.
Later, early Polynesian settlers introduced them to Hawaii the place they’ve change into a staple. These nutritious potatoes are excessive in antioxidants, phytonutrients and health-promoting fiber and really comprise 150% extra antioxidants than blueberries.
A visit to Hawaii not in your journey plans by Easter? No worries. Yow will discover Okinawan candy potatoes at Tokyo Central in Yorba Linda. And why save them for particular events? Seize some further and simply bake them at 350 levels till very, very comfortable, an hour or extra relying on measurement.
I like them plain, however add butter if you happen to like.
No journey to Kauai could be full with out visiting a farmers market.
At Rose’s Tropical Exotics we tasted the Caimito, additionally known as the cream apple, star apple or milk apple, though it’s not an apple in any respect.
It seems like a purple plum with a light-weight purple inside.
We received a number of mangosteens, which comprise essentially the most antioxidants of any fruit, and acquired some Chicas, a candy tropical fruit that tastes like cinnamon and brown sugar.
At Moloa’a Organica, the place every part they promote is grown organically on their very own land, we discovered taro – you boil and eat it like a potato – pumpkin squash, pink and purple daikon radishes, inexperienced Japanese eggplant and Noni, a medicinal fruit, which was one of many first fruits the Polynesians delivered to Hawaii.
We met Domini Mellott of Candy Harvest Hawaii, they ship uncommon Hawaiian botanicals nationwide. Grown regionally, these merchandise are mentioned to lower irritation, swelling and ache and enhance digestion. See their web site, secretharvesthawaii.com, and be taught why the ginger and turmeric you’re shopping for in shops are usually not offering the vitamins you anticipate.
“Ninety % of what folks eat in Hawaii is introduced in,” Mellott defined. “Pre-European Kauai was feeding the remainder of the chain by way of a system of farming known as Ahu’pua’a, from the mountain prime to the shoreline.”
This land dividing system promoted sustainability and conservation of pure sources, offering every part the native Hawaiians wanted to outlive.
“They needed to be sustainable,” she mentioned. “Everybody else was buying and selling. It’s essentially the most remoted place on earth.”
Fullerton’s Judy Bart Kancigor is the creator of “Cooking Jewish” and “The Good Passover Cookbook.” Her web site is cookingjewish.com.
Mashed Okinawan Candy Potatoes
From: Licensed chef Valentina Wein’s cookingontheweekends.com
Elements:
- 1 1/2 kilos Okinawan candy potatoes
- 2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup half-and-half
- 1 1/4 teaspoons sea salt
- freshly floor black pepper, to style
Technique:
1. Fill medium-size stockpot with chilly water. Peel potatoes and reduce into giant chunks (roughly 2-3 inches). Add to pot with water. Place pot over excessive warmth and convey to a boil. Scale back warmth to low and simmer, uncovered, till potatoes are very tender (they need to simply slide off fork prongs), about quarter-hour.
2. Pressure potatoes and place them in medium to giant mixing bowl. With giant fork or potato masher mash them as clean or chunky as you want. Add butter as quickly as doable so it melts into sizzling potatoes. Then add half-and-half, salt and pepper, and blend solely till every part is integrated.
