New Year recipes: Baked sweet potatoes in coconut sauce

Happy New Year, let’s kick off 2019 with a delicious and simple sweet potato dish. We will partly boil the sweet potatoes then roast them in an oven until browned then toss them up in some Swahili coconut sauce. Let’s get cooking!

What you will need:

1 kg sweet potatoes, cut into wedges

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 onion, chopped               

2 tablespoons oil

1 teaspoon turmeric powder

1 teaspoon curry powder

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Salt to taste

1 stick rosemary, chopped

250ml coconut cream

1 litre water for boiling

What to do:

In a pot over medium heat, pour water, add salt. Put in the sweet potatoes and boil for about 5 minutes or until partly cooked, ensure you don’t overcook the potatoes.

Once ready, discard the water and put the potatoes in a large baking tray. Sprinkle some black pepper, a little bit of oil and rosemary then roast in an oven at 200 degrees Celsius for about 45 minutes. While sweet potatoes are in the oven, let’s make the coconut sauce.

In a sauce pan over medium heat, add the oil, sauté the onions until golden brown, add the minced garlic, add some black pepper, curry powder, turmeric powder and mix well until fragrant. Add the coconut cream and some salt to taste then bring to a boil until thick.

Once the sweet potatoes are browned, pour the cooked coconut sauce on them and serve warm as a meal on its own.