Friday, August 1, 2014

Savory Sweet Potato Corncakes with Maple Cream


Hello. My name is Meredith and I love Brunch.

Sweet potatoes have been done 800 ways (and I am a sucker for every damn one of them). But this also means that every dude on the internet, from Martha Stewart to that Guy who wears his sunglasses upside down, has a recipe for sweet potato latkes. Or something similar.

But they all contain egg. Which is not cool with me. So here's a little something for you eggless types. I like a good savory brunch, and these sweet potato corncakes pair well with a sweet cream or syrup. These are hard to screw up and are easily crafted with a hangover (or a mimosa in hand).

Here's what you'll need (serves 3-4):

2 sweet potatoes (some certain size, peeled and grated)
1 shallot, peeled chopped

2 T all-purpose flour
1 T cornstarch
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 C vegetable oil
2 T almond milk
1 T ground flax meal

olive oil for frying

In a large bowl, combine grated sweet potatoes with those chopped shallots. In a seperate, smaller bowl, whisk to combine your dry ingredients: the flour, cornstarch and spices. Add to the sweet potato mix. Use that same smaller bowl to whisk together your flax/oil/milk mixture, then add that to the large bowl.

Mix all ingredients until well combined. Your mixture should feel sort of sticky but able to be managebly spooned into cohesive lumps. This sentence made me LOL you guys.

Anyways, if things don't feel too right, you may add more flour if your mix is too wet, or more oil if it is too dry.

Heat a non-stick skillet with olive oil on medium-high. Be sure to not let the oil smoke, or else you're screwed and you need to start all over from the beginning (jk guyz). Spoon potato lumps onto the well-heated skillet 2 or 3 at a time. I always like to do the first one all on its lonesome, to test out the heat of the oil. Once that one is finished, you usually can know if your pan is either too hot or not hot enough.

Fry on one side for  2-3 minutes -but if you let yourself get *too* distracted mixing pre-brunch cocktails or checking Instagram, that's ok. Not all is lost. Flip those guys over, smush them flat, and fry another few minutes. Check the side to make sure it's a nice golden brown before setting on a paper towel to drain the oil/dry.

The maple cream I like to serve with these dudes is super easy (read: totally predictable). Just mix the following in a shallow bowl:

1/4 C vegan sour cream
1 T v. cream cheese
1 T pure maple syrup
1/2 tsp brown sugar

I like to drizzle this on top, but according to the Internet, it's more traditional to spoon some sort of sour cream on whatever sort of latkes you end up with.

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