Monday, May 05, 2008

Sweet Potato.


I am baking a sweet potato in the oven right now for my dinner. With this I am steaming some nice fresh seasonal vegetables. I just looked up Sweet Potato out of interest and it says they are really named, "Kumara", this I never knew. I also didn't know that they are not even related to the potato at all, and that they grow on a vine too!

When I have read Bryce Courtenay books he often writes about the South African people eating Sweet Potato as a desert. I am not sure it is the very same one as this. Why? Because I read here also that the Kumara is Staple diet for Maori's and South American peoples.

Does anyone know any more about this Kumara? Have you cooked it before? And...does it taste nice in a scone recipe? I read that you can mash it and make it into scones too.

12 comments:

Unknown said...

no idea, but i'm seriously craving for sweet potato right now.

maybe i'm just hungry... yummy...

Anonymous said...

Not my favourite vegetable. Aka taro. I did not know it grew on a vine.

Mal Kiely [Lancelots Pram] said...

I love sweet potato, but I've never heard it called that. We don't really 'do' the whole potato pie thing over here, so unfortunately, I don't know about baking them in scones. But some people use Pumpkin in scones, so I guess it could be done.

Cyalayta
Mal :)

Jay said...

I've never heard of Kumara. I'm not a big fan of sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are also called "yams" in may areas of the US. But, I don't think they really are yams. Kinda weird.

Deadman said...

Yams with marshmallow topping is the thing in many parts of the US for Thanksgiving.

Mom said...

I love sweet potatoes. My family is from Texas and there they called them yams. I never heard the kumara before. I eat them baked with butter and cinnamon sugar. I like them french fried and crispy. You can make sweet potato pie and sweet potato soufflé which are yummy. My father-in-law made them with so much butter and sugar and marshmallows that they were too sweet to eat. He loved them that way.

Keshi said...

We eat alot of Sweet Potato in Sri Lanka too. We just boil it in hot water, peal it and eat with hot n spicy coconut chutney. Its so yummy!

And yes it's quite nutritious.

Keshi.

Stace said...

I just did a Google search for "kumara", it appears the same as what we call a sweet potato.

I love sweet potato, my mother once made a really really nice sweet potato and lentil casserole, mmmmm...

Aidan and I tried to cook up an interesting, made-up dish last night, sort of curried sausages with potato and cauliflower, it was quite nice although he wasn't happy with how it turned out.

G-Man said...

Everybody in America has this at Thanksgiving.Which is always the last thursday in November..
I love it best baked in a pie...G

fiona4802 said...

We always had the purple sweet potatoes with the white flesh inside when I was growing up in Werribee. Having lived in north Qld for many years, I am now more familiar with the orange sweet potato or kumara. I recently used it in a cake. I just used my banana cake recipe and used leftover roasted sweet potato and pumpkin instead of banana. It was awesome! The kids loved it and didn't even know they were eating vegies. That's a win for mum!
At Christmas my husband (who grew up in the US and Canada) bakes sweet potato with butter, brown sugar and maple syrup. It's really delicious and people always ask how it's done.
I also enjoy using it in curries.

Middle Child said...

weet potato is just lovely...baked whatever. as flakes in oil... mmm and mashed with coriander that is just delicious... sooo hungry

Middle Child said...

meant "sweet not whet" potato damn and darn