Kaddo
Delicious appetizer adapted from Helmand Palace in San Francisco. Roasted sweet potatoes topped with a savory meat sauce and a cool mint-garlic yogurt.
Servings: 4
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
Notes
The original recipe calls for 2 sugar pumpkins which are prepared as follows:
Make the pumpkin: It helps to have a serious vegetable cleaver for this bit. Preheat your oven to 300º. Wash off the outside of the pumpkins. Cut them in half. Scrape out the stringy stuff on the inside. Cut the halves into 3#-4# pieces or so. Peel them. Get rid of all the green and rind. Find a baking pan large enough to hold all the pumpkin pieces in a single layer. Cover the pumpkin pieces in the oil and place them hollow side up in the pan. Pour the sugar evenly over the pumpkin pieces. Cover the pan with aluminum foil. Bake for 2 1/2 hours, then baste the pieces with the pan juices, cover them up again, and bake for another 45 minutes. The sugar will all melt away and end up partially absorbed. The pumpkin pieces will turn dark orange and translucent. They will have a stunningly novel texture.
You can substitute butternut squash for either the pumpkin or sweet potatoes.