Light Bites Recipes - Curried Sweet Potato Balls Recipe

Ingredients

• 450g/1lb sweet potatoes or taro root, boiled or baked, and peeled

• 30ml/2 tbsp sugar

• 15ml/1 tbsp Indian curry powder or spice blend of your choice

• 25g/1 oz fresh root ginger, peeled and grated

• 150g/5oz/1 1/4 cups glutinous rice flour or plain (all purpose) flour

• salt

• sesame seeds or poppy seeds

• vegetable oil, for deep-frying

• dipping sauce, to serve

Serves 4

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Method:

1. In a bowl, mash the cooked sweet potatoes or taro root. Beat in the sugar, curry powder and ginger.

2. Add the rice flour (sift it if you are using plain flour) and salt, and work into a stiff dough - add more flour if necessary.

3. Pull off lumps of the dough and mould them into small balls - you should be able to make roughly 24 balls.

4. Roll the balls on a bed of sesame seeds or poppy seeds until they are completely coated. 

5. Heat enough oil for deep-frying in a wok. Fry the sweet potato balls in batches, until golden. Drain on kitchen paper.

6. Serve the balls with wooden skewers to make it easier to dip them into a dipping sauce of your choice.

Note: These sweet potato balls. with roots in Chinese and South-east Asian cooking. are delicious dipped in a fiery red chili sauce. fried black chili sauce or hot peanut dipping sauce. Simple to make they are ideal for serving as a nibble with a drink.

Variation: Also known as "dasheen", taro root is a starchy tuber cultivated in many parts of Asia. If you opt to use it instead of the sweet potato in this recipe, you may need to add more sugar as it has a much nuttier taste when cooked.