A Sweet Mash-Up (Helmand Palace Kaddo)
I found myself in the city one evening last week driving down Van Ness Ave. If you have driven down that boulevard lately, it has been under major construction for what seems like an eternity. Major swaths of the street have been dug up and walled off with wood barriers and fencing. I can’t even imagine how the businesses on the street are coping with such a major disruption.
On this night I reached the section near Green and Van Ness and much to my surprise, the walls and giant cranes were gone. I spotted the restaurant Helmand Palace, an Afghani restaurant I have been meaning to try for a long time. A spot opened up (in the City that’s a sign) in front so I immediately parked my car and headed into the restaurant. Obviously I was meant to have Afghani food tonight!
I zeroed in on the one dish I had to try, Kaddo. What’s Kaddo, you ask? It’s pumpkin slow roasted in sugar and cinnamon until tender and smothered with a tomato based sauce of ground beef flavored with ginger, coriander and turmeric. It’s topped with a cold yogurt sauce spiked with garlic and mint. Every bite is a melt-in-your-mouth revelation—soft, satiny, DELICIOUS. It is mind bogglingly good.
I asked for TWO orders of Kaddo for take-out (the fam was at home), and, while I waited, I told the host that I found their recipe for Kaddo on Epicurious and it is one of my favorites. His restaurant and the Kadoo, in particular, have been my gotta try bucket list for a long time. It didn’t disappoint. Their Aushak, a dumpling filled with leeks and scallions layered with a meat sauce and yogurt was equally scrumptious.
A while back we celebrated mom’s birthday with a visit to Cala in San Francisco. The food was delicious but their slow-roasted Sweet Potato with Bone Marrow Salsa Negra had me in a tizzy. How could something so simple taste so delicious? Smitten Kitchen posted a recipe for slow roasted sweet potatoes that sounded so much like the amazing dish at Cala, it gave me an idea. You know where I’m going with this right? Beautifully charred, meltingly soft sweet potatoes topped with Kaddo….oh yeah we are so going there.
SWEET MASH-UP TIME
I slow-roasted the sweet potatoes until they were soft, caramelized, and charred on the outside. While the sweet potatoes were roasting, I made the Helmand Palace meat and yogurt sauces. Remove the potatoes from the oven and let them cool so you can handle them. Brush the roasted sweet potatoes with browned butter and top with sugar/cinnamon before adding the warm meat sauce and cold yogurt. Offer to the highest bidder. I’d raise my hand and bid for this.
You can also set up a SWEET little fixings bar so everyone can choose their own toppings. Have the Kaddo sauces and any of the toppings from Sam Kass’s, Eat a Little Better at the ready for everyone to pick their favorite. Indescribably delicious and fun!
For vegetarians, skip the meat sauce and slather the cool minty, garlic yogurt sauce on the hot, charred sweet potato.
Potatolicious, you’re welcome.
Kaddo
Ingredients
- 4-6 Sweet potatoes
- butter
- sugar
- cinnamon
For the yogurt sauce
- 2 C plain yogurt
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1 tsp dried mint
- 1/2 tsp salt
- For the meat sauce
- 1/4 C vegetable oil
- 1 large onion finely diced
- 1 1/2 lbs. ground beef or mixture of lamb and beef
- 1 large tomato seeded and finely chopped
- 2 large garlic cloves minced
- 1 1/4 tsp ground coriander
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp freshly ground pepper
- 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 1/3 C water
Slow Roasted Sweet Potatoes
- 4 medium sweet potatoes (about 3 pounds), scrubbed clean
- 4 teaspoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
Slow Roasted Sweet Potatoes
- Heat your oven to 275°F. Arrange sweet potatoes on a large, foil-lined baking sheet. Rub each with 1 teaspoon olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt (which will make a quite salty skin, use less if desired) and 1/4 teaspoon pepper until well coated.
- Bake until very soft inside and caramelized on the bottom, about 2 1/2 hours.
- Heat your broiler and run the potatoes underneath it — mine is fairly weak, and this took 5 to 10 minutes, but check in regularly, a more robust one might do it in 1 to 2 minutes — until lightly charred on top.
- Let potatoes cool 10 minutes, then gently crush potatoes with your hands to expose the flesh.
- Split sweet potatoes, brush insides with melted butter. Sprinkle with sugar and a dash of cinnamon.
Sauces (Make while sweet potatoes are roasting)
- YOGURT SAUCE: Mix all the ingredients together. Refridgerate.
- MEAT SAUCE: Brown the onions in the oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add meat and cook over medium-high heat, stirring, until browned. Add all other ingredients (except for the tomato paste and water) and cook, stirring, for another 5 minutes or so. Stir in the tomato paste, then add the water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and let simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes.
- Top each sweet potato with cold yogurt sauce and hot meat sauce. Serve immediately