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New ingredient: purple yam

May 5, 2014 6 Comments Filed Under: Food, Recipes, Uncategorized

What is this? It’s a purple yam (Dioscorea alata). 
  • Mostly used in sweet dishes, in this country you can buy it in jars marked ‘Ube’ in ethnic shops.
  • Ube is what they call it in the Phillipines. It can be used as a sweet spread. 
  • The sweet spread tastes like granular condensed milk mixed with chestnuts. 
  • Purple yams can be fried, boiled or baked. Keep the skin on when boiling, then peel off afterwards.
  • It can be used as a cure for leprosy, gonorrhea and hemorrhoids
  • Yam is an important tuber in African cuisine. In Nigeria, there is even a religious festival involving yam. It can be stored for months. 
  • It’s important not to confuse purple yam with purple sweet potato or purple potato. Americans often call ‘soft’ sweet potatoes ‘yams’. 

Purple fudge
Purple yam jam
Purple yam doughnuts
Purple yam crisps

The fabric used here in the background is called ‘Letesi’ or German Print. I bought it in Botswana, where it is used for traditional print dresses. It is an oiled cotton made in South Africa, using copper etched patterned rolls. The best known trademark is ‘Three Cats’. 

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Comments

  1. Cate

    May 6, 2014 at 8:30 am

    I have never seen one before. I don't think we have them in Australia, such a gorgeous colour!

    Reply
    • Kerstin Rodgers

      May 6, 2014 at 10:12 am

      I have seen the ingredient on Australian recipe sites I think. But a lovely violet shade isn't it? to think that this is entirely natural!

      Reply
  2. Anonymous

    May 6, 2014 at 11:39 am

    This entire post is a series on non sequiturs. So bizzare. Why not at least describe the flavour? Anyway, off to rubs yams on my leporosy – thanks for the tip!

    Reply
    • Kerstin Rodgers

      May 6, 2014 at 3:06 pm

      mm it sorta tastes like purple fudgy sweet potatoes/yammy. Or granular condensed milk? Really it's all about the colour.

      Reply
    • Kerstin Rodgers

      May 6, 2014 at 4:04 pm

      By the way, if you are going to be snarky, which is totally fine, do at least have the courage to sign your name. Much more fun! (I can honestly say I've never left an anonymous comment in my life).

      Reply
  3. Miss Messy

    May 11, 2014 at 9:42 pm

    I'm so intrigued by this! I wan't to try some. On the look out now 🙂

    Reply

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

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msmarmitelover

Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam. Rose Appl Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam.  Rose Apple Blossom Tarts

Serves 8

Equipment: 
Microwave
Cupcake or muffin tin

I use a red-skinned apple to make these, to get a hint of blush at the edges of the ‘petals’.

Ingredients:
4 Pink Lady or Royal Gala apples, cored, cut into quarters, sliced thinly into half moons
1 lemon, squeezed
1 pack all butter readymade puff pastry 320g, on a roll, cut into 8 strips about 6 cms long
100g of melted butter
1/2 jar of rose jam
1 or 2 tbsp cinnamon or cardamom, ground 
Pinch maldon salt
2 or 3 tbsp icing sugar

Instructions

Prepare a bowl of acidulated water (cold water with lemon juice) to prevent browning.
Core the apples, and cut them in quarters. Slice thinly into half-moons (a mandolin is useful for this). 
Put them into a large bowl of cold water with the lemon.
Microwave the bowl of sliced apples for 5 minutes until soft enough to bend slightly but not cook them.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Roll out the puff pastry. Divide into 8 sections by cutting the roll into quarters then halving each quarter. You will end up with 8 approximately 6cm strips.
Brush the strip with melted butter then paint with a layer of rose jam. You can then dust with either ground cinnamon or cardamom.
Lay the apple slices along the top of the pastry strip, overlapping them. Fold up the bottom half of the pastry strip to make an pleat with the skin side of the apple half moon poking over the top.
Roll up the folded pastry strips until they look like a rose made of apple at the top
Place ‘rose’ side up, in a buttered cupcake tin
Repeat until all are done and bake for 20 -30 minutes.
Using a tea strainer or small sieve, sprinkle with icing sugar.
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