Honey steamed sweet potato 蒸蜂蜜红薯

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If you live in China, you've probably noticed the push-cart sweet potato sellers out in force recently, shouting “红薯, 红薯, 买红薯"。This morning I succumbed and bought a kilo from a local auntie 阿姨 with a hand-held balance scale 称子。Cost me ￥3.5 for six of them (1 公斤/ 1 kilogram,) about 50 cents US. This afternoon I'll show you a quick and simple way to fix them as a side dish for your evening meal. 

 

The lowly sweet potato is not a star in the West. It often shows up in the US at Thanksgiving, then disappears. But it's definitely a staple in the Far East, particularly China and Japan. It has lots of nutrition without many calories. Furthermore this fine root vegetable is just now coming into high season here. That means it's abundant and prime quality is cheap. In a month or so, the itinerant potato roasters will be out and about with their charcoal fires, standing on a street corner or moving slowly with a cart. 

 

Wash them well and peel them 洗净剥皮。The surface usually has some grit. Slice them into angled rounds 2 or 3 cm thick 切片。The three sweet potatoes shown here weighed just under 400 grams /400克。(Click the photos to enlarge them.)

 

   

 

 

Add a quart or so of tap water to your steamer pot 蒸锅。If you don't have one, you can use your rice cooker 电饭煲 with its steamer basket. Failing that, use your wok 炒锅, with a wire rack and a lid 盖子。Place the sliced sweet potatoes in a shallow bowl  浅碗子, set it inside and cover the pot 盖上盖子。

 

   

 

 

Using high heat 高火, bring the water to a boil, 沸水, such that you can see escaping steam 看到上汽。Then turn it down to low 小火 and cook for 10 minutes. When your timer rings, turn off the flame, leaving the pot covered and undisturbed for another 10 minutes 关火焖十分钟。

 

   

 

 

 

 

While the sweet potatoes are cooking, mix 2 tablespoons 两汤勺 of honey 蜂蜜 with 1 tablespoon of hot water 热水 in a cup or rice bowl 饭碗。When the time is up, check to make sure they are done by being sure it's easy to pierce one or two with a chopstick. You want them to be soft 微烂, but not mushy and falling apart. 

 

 

Lift them out 去锅, sprinkle them lightly with coarse-ground salt 食用盐and drizzle with the honey mixture. Toss gently 轻轻的拌匀。Serve while hot.

 

 

They really hit the spot as well as being cheap and easy. Give them a try when you have a chance. 

[amytheorangutan]

This looks easy to do I'm definitely giving this a go ?

[大块头]

Looks tasty, but I like my method of putting them in the oven and forgetting you put them there for a couple hours.

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11 minutes ago, 大块头 said:

Looks tasty, but I like my method of putting them in the oven and forgetting you put them there for a couple hours.

 

That would be good too, but I don't have an oven here. I would leave the skin on, just scrubbing them well, if I went that route. Is that how you do it? Does it make them nice and crisp?  

 

I found several good looking Chinese recipes on-line that involved deep frying them, but I wanted a method that would not make them quite so heavy. 

[大块头]

I know almost nothing about cooking, so maybe you can offer some tips. I just rinse them, put them on a baking sheet with some foil, and leave them in an oven at 350 degrees F for a couple hours. It seems like the longer you leave them in the oven the more caramelized and tasty they get.

[abcdefg]

Nothing I could add to that! 

[Alex_Hart]

Looks like an easy and delicious recipe! I'll need to try this. Always looking for easy side dishes!

 

I usually use the oven as well, though I tend to slice it and toss it with some olive oil and cumin/chili flakes first, or with some rosemary if I have it around. When I was a kid and my grandma was feeling lazy and making dinner, she'd roast a sweet potato whole in the oven (with or without foil) and put it on a plate with a slice of butter. They're also my favorite camping food - wrap it up in some foil and throw it on the embers of the campfire (or on the edge if the fire is still roaring) and forget about it for a while.

 

I love those 红薯 that you buy off the back of someone's bike. I often juggle one while riding my scooter in the cooler weather - there is one on almost every corner and it makes for a good snack/lunch after class. It also keeps my fingers warm while riding the scooter and hits the spot on Hangzhou's colder days.

[S.Chen]

You can wash them and toss them into an oven without evening cutting them into pieces. Bake at 375F-400F for an hour and a half, it will taste great by itself (just to make sure you peel them before you actually eat it). The best way to test if it's ready is to stick a chopstick into one. If it's ready, you don't need much effort to stick the chopstick through it. 

 

 That's how I ate them when I grew up in Beijing.

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An equipment footnote which might be of help if you are making this dish, or something similar, in a Chinese kitchen. 

 

Wire steamer racks 蒸架隔 come in several styles and sizes. They cost 10 to 15 Yuan. You can put one in a wok, set a shallow dish on it, put on the lid, and do just about as good a job as if you had a dedicated steamer pot. Most kitchens here are small with limited cabinet space, so one less piece of equipment to store is a good thing. 

 

   

 

The tool you use to lift a hot dish out of a steamer 取盘器 is a handy small investment if you steam things often. Mine cost 10 Yuan. Keeps you from scalding your hands 防烫手。

 

   

 

 

 

When I lived in the US, I seldom steamed things. Here in China, I do it several times a week. In the south, Guangdong and Hong Kong in particular, it has been refined to a high art and bamboo steamer baskets are often employed. Those are particularly useful for making steamed dumplings 蒸饺 and delicate dim sum  早茶/点心 items such as shao mai 烧卖。

[ChTTay]

Sweet potato doesn’t really crisp. I always wondered what I was doing wrong when I’d make wedges. Then I read that restaurants use a coating (some kind of flour mixture if I recall) on the wedges. It’s that coating that crisps during frying/baking, rather than the sweet potato. 

 

Anyway, these look good but I find sweet potato sweet enough without honey! I also really like the purple potatoes you get in China... perhaps more than sweet potato. The purple ones are good hot or cold. I find cold they don’t “mush” so easily; keep their shape a bit better. 

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16 hours ago, ChTTay said:

Sweet potato doesn’t really crisp.

 

Interesting. I didn't know that. Never tried the oven method. 

 

16 hours ago, ChTTay said:

The purple ones are good hot or cold.

 

I like those too. 紫薯 They require slightly longer cooking time. 

[amytheorangutan]

I put one in the oven yesterday. It was pretty good ?

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The sweet potatoes I find here have a deeper orange color. Did your's have a rich, sweet taste, @amytheorangutan? 

 

In many places, grocery stores present us with confused labeling: sweet potatoes and yams get mixed up, even though they are not the same vegetable. 

 

     

 

Yam on the left; sweet potato 红薯 on the right. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Sweet potato on the left; yam on the right. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.bonappetit.com/story/difference-between-sweet-potato-and-yam

https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/whats-the-difference-between-sweet-potatoes-and-yams-article

https://ncsweetpotatoes.com/sweet-potatoes-101/difference-between-yam-and-sweet-potato/

 

Not sure I've ever had a yam, as described in these articles. In the US south and southwest (I live part of each year in Texas) people talk about "baked yams" or "candied yams" when they really mean sweet potatoes. They are popular at Thanksgiving, with lots of sweet toppings, sometimes even marshmallow. 

[amytheorangutan]

@abcdefg I think the one I got is a different kind of sweet potatoes but I'm sure it's not yam as my mum used to steam yam at home. It is not as sweet and creamy as the sweet potatoes I used to have in Asia but I feel like a lot of fruits and veggies in London sometimes don't have any taste. The one I baked was from Chinatown, there are orange flesh ones which I normally get from normal supermarket. From the photo I found below it seems like mine is supposed to be Japanese sweet potatoes but they're probably grown here in the UK. They seem to have deeper coloured skin but more yellowish white flesh than orange? 

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That makes good sense, @Amy -- There are so many varieties. That's an excellent illustration that you posted. Thanks!

 

The most prized ones here in Yunnan are small, only slightly bigger around than a sausage and 3 or 4 inches long, "fingerlings." They call them 萌番薯 most of the time. These little ones are always served steamed with the skin on. One peels them at the table, or one can eat the skin. They are a staple breakfast item, but can show up at other times of day as well. 

 

14 hours ago, amytheorangutan said:

...but I feel like a lot of fruits and veggies in London sometimes don't have any taste.

 

That's what I find in the US too, when I return for my annual visit. So many fruits and vegetables look good in the store, but lack real flavor once I cook them. Disappointing! I get spoiled here, where most of the produce I buy at the local wet market was harvested that same morning or maybe the day before. Short supply chain from farm to market.  

[Shelley]

I do a similar thing with carrots, slice them on the diagonal, steam till soft but not mushy, put carrots to drain, add a big knob of butter to the pan now emptied of water, once melted add 2 teaspoonful of sugar (any type you like) stir constantly to stop sugar from burning and once butter and sugar are blended add the carrots back, turn off the heat and thoroughly stir to coat the carrots. Serve immediately and eat hot. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

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That sounds delicious, Shelley.