Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Frituritas de Camote (Sweet Potato Fritters)

This is not a traditional "Cuban" recipe, but my grandmother makes these beautiful tasty sinful fritters made of "Sweet Potato" I think this would make a nice addition to a "Thanksgiving" meal here in America (or Canada)

Main Ingredients:
-3 medium fat sweet potatoes
-2 large eggs
-1/2 cup white flour
-1 tablespoon baking powder
-sugar to taste (also optional but see note below)
-1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon (optional)
-oil to deep fry
Directions:
(1)Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees, get sweet potatoes and lightly rub them with oil, put in a baking dish uncovered to bake about 40 minutes- 1 hour.

(2)Let cool, peel and mash to a paste (don't be picky just mash it it doesn't have to be super smooth or anything)


(3)Add beaten eggs, flour, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar to taste. Mix batter it should be a thick batter than you can scoop and it can sorta hold it shape like "gloppy"

(4)Let batter rest for 1 hour. Now heat oil on medium high heat enough to pan-fry/ deep-fry. When ready drop the batter by the spoonfuls and and brown on each side, set aside on a plate with paper towels.


NOTE!:
If you wish you can skip the cinnamon and sugar BUT you will need to make a heavy syrup to drizzle over the fritters when they are done. My grandmother for this makes a syrup with equal dark brown sugar to water with 1 cinnamon stick to flavor it. She brings it to a boil, when it reaches desired consistency it's ready to use.

ALSO do not try to steam or boil it to make the batter, it will make the batter to loose and watery, the reason the sweet potatoes are baked uncovered is so that they release a lot of their liquid and are nice and starchy for the batter.

LASTLY VERY IMPORTANT don't try to be healthy and make these " sugar free" or any of that may I say "crap" or they'll taste NASTY, if you wanna do that just steam, bake, or boil the sweet potato and eat it by itself :)