Indian spiced sweet potato patties

When your main course is simple to make, why not spend a little more time on your side dish? I made these Indian spiced sweet potato patties the other day as the side dish for spicy Moroccan chicken skewers (recipe also on this blog). Sweet potatoes are already full flavored so you really can't go wrong with this dish.

Indian Spiced Sweet Potato Patties

Recipe from sonisfoodforthought.blogspot.com

Cooking time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Yield: about 8 - 10 patties

Ingredients

3 medium or 4-5 small sweet potatoes

1 medium potato, boiled

1 inch ginger, crushed

2 jalapenos, chopped finely

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

2-3 tbsp cornstarch

salt to taste

oil for shallow frying

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Give the sweet potatoes a good scrub. Lay on a baking sheet and roast for 50 minutes to 1 hour or until it can easily be pierced with fork. 
3. Meanwhile, bring the potato with water to a boil over high heat. Drain and set aside.
4. Peel the skin off the sweet potatoes. Mash together with the boiled potato in a large bowl and add the remaining ingredients except the oil. Scoop the potato mixture and shape into a ball. Flatten the ball between your hands and into round patties. 
5. Heat oil in a non stick skillet over medium heat. Carefully lay the patties in the pan and shallow fry until caramelized and golden on both sides. Remove from heat and serve with ketchup.

Nutritional Analysis:
per patty: 118.8 calories, 4g fat (0.6g saturated, 0.6g polyunsaturated, 1.2g monounsaturated), 19.6g carbohydrates, 2.6g fiber, 1.5g protein

**Helpful tips and common mistakes

Depending on the size of your sweet potatoes, they may take longer or shorter than 1 hour to roast in the oven. To know when they are ready, pierce the potato with a fork. The fork should easily be able to poke through the sweet potato without any resistance. 

When boiling the regular potato, I peeled the skin first and cut it into chunks. This makes the potato cook faster. Always start cooking the potato in cold water, not boiled! This is important or else the center of the potato does not get cooked!

Once you are ready to shape the patties, an ice cream scooper really comes in handy. It allows you to get the same shaped patties every time. 

Make sure to use a nonstick pan when frying these patties or else they will stick. Since you are shallow frying, you will only need about 2 tbsp of oil for each side of the patty. 

Allow the patties to caramelize in the pan before flipping them over. If you have trouble flipping them when they are browned, try chilling the patties in the refrigerator for 20 minutes before frying. This allows them to firm up. 

If you are planning to make these ahead of time you can fry the patties and reheat them later in the oven. 

Yum yum! These sweet potato patties were wonderful! They have a subtle Indian spice to them while still retaining the natural sweetness. The outside of the patties are crispy but the inside is nice and almost creamy. I personally didn't even think they needed ketchup, but if I was to serve a dipping sauce I would have it with chipotle ketchup.