Fozia Ismail’s sweet potato rösti with tamarind bisbas
Embracing the errors of experimentation as we move towards spring. Words by Fozia Ismail. Photographs by Fozia Ismail and Georgia Rudd.
‘such then is beauty
surrendered
against all hope
you are here again
turning slowly
nature as chameleon
all life change
and changing again
awakening hearts
steady moving from
unnamed loss…’— bell hooks, Appalachian Elegy
In her collection Appalachian Elegy, bell hooks writes about going back to Kentucky, where she grew up, and communing with the land in spite of the imprints of pain suffered by colonised and enslaved people. In these poems, she urges us to reconnect with the natural environment as a way of reconnecting with ourselves. This is a common sentiment in hooks’ work: as she wrote in Sisters of the Yam, ‘Wherever black folks live we can restore our relationship to the natural world by taking time to commune with nature, to appreciate the other creatures who share this planet with humans.’
As we edge towards spring, I am reminded of her words. I am cheered up by seeing the magnolia come to life again – whenever I pass some, I take a second to appreciate the gorgeous white and pink colours, shapely against a blue sky. These moments in which we notice the gradual changes in our environment can easily be missed in the busyness of everyday life. But I believe that this act of noticing is crucial, and I think it can also be applied to cooking. So many of my favourite dishes are born out of brief moments of reflection or memory of smell or flavour.
Although this week’s experiment in yam involved many mistakes and errors, the optimism of spring kept me going. When I started, I tried to make this rösti with puna yam. I undertook the slow, somewhat-tedious process of partly boiling the yam, then leaving it in the fridge, so it was disappointing when the resulting rösti had a slightly chalky taste (perhaps because I didn’t boil the yam enough). But cooking, like life, comes with this mix of hope and frustration. As tedious as it was, that experiment led me to this one, a rösti made with purple-skinned sweet potato – which turned out to be a winner.
And as I cooked it, I was grateful for these experiments, and for the possibility of recovery from disappointment through cooking, writing, and reading, always, alongside bell hooks.
Sweet potato rösti with tamarind bisbas (salsa) and kachumber salad
This makes for a great weekend brunch, or an easy evening meal – just make sure to cook the sweet potato in advance.
Serves 2–3
Time 45 mins plus at least 2 hrs chilling
Ingredients
for the rösti
600g purple sweet potato (one or two large potatoes)
1 tsp xawaash or cumin
salt
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
a knob of butter
pepper
for the bisbas
1 large vine tomato, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
3 green bird’s eye chillis, roughly chopped
1 large handful fresh coriander (leaves and stalks, about 50g), roughly chopped
2 tsp honey
6 tsp tamarind paste
salt, to taste
for the kachumber
1 large tomato, finely chopped
½ cucumber, finely chopped
½ red onion, finely chopped
juice and zest of ½ lime
olive oil
salt
pepper
to serve (optional)
fried eggs
Greek yogurt
Method
1 Cut the sweet potato – no need to peel it – into 10cm chunks. Place in a large saucepan, cover with cold water, and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat slightly and parboil for about 15 mins, at which point the sweet potato should be roughly half-cooked. You should be able to easily pierce the skin with the tip of a knife or a metal skewer, but the centre should still be firm.
2 Drain the sweet potato and rinse well under cold water. Allow to cool completely, then put into a container and refrigerate for 2–3 hrs, or overnight.
3 Meanwhile, make the tamarind bisbas. Put the tomato, garlic, chillies, and coriander in a blender or food processor. Pulse a couple of times, then mix in the honey and tamarind paste, add salt to taste and blitz until smooth.
4 When the potatoes are chilled and firm, coarsely grate them. Add the xawaash or cumin and some salt, and mix well using your hands. Roughly shape into between four and six balls and slightly flatten each one between your palms.
5 Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium-low heat. Add two röstis to the pan and flatten more with a spatula. Cook for 10 mins or until the edges are nicely crisped up. Add a knob of butter to the pan, then gently flip the röstis and cook the other side. Carefully remove from the pan and keep in a warm oven while you cook the remaining röstis.
6 While the röstis are frying, make the kachumber. Add the tomato, cucumber, and onion to a bowl and toss well to combine. Add the lime zest and juice, the olive oil, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and mix until everything is evenly coated.
7 To serve, put a couple of röstis on each place and drizzle over a good amount of the tamarind bisbas, with some kachumber on the side. You can also top with a fried egg, if you’d like to, and finish with a dollop of Greek yogurt.
Notes
Any leftover rösti can be kept covered in the fridge for a day; warm in an oven at low temperature before eating. The kachumber is best eaten fresh but will last 1–2 days if stored in the fridge. The tamarind salsa should keep for up to a week in a sealed container in the fridge.
Credits
Fozia Ismail is a Researcher, Creative Producer and Artist. Fozia is founder and researcher at Arawelo Eats, a supper club which explores East African food and what it can mean for our understanding of belonging in a post-Brexit world. Her work has been published and featured in a range of media including Observer Food Magazine, Vittles, and BBC Radio 4 Food Programme. When not critically eating her way through life’s messiness she can be found plotting at the Pervasive Media Studio and Spike Island with her sister in arms Ayan Cilmi as part of dhaqan collective, a Somali feminist art collective in Bristol.
Vittles Recipes is edited by Rebecca May Johnson, Sharanya Deepak, Jonathan Nunn, and Odhran O’Donoghueand are proofed and subedited by Odhran O’Donoghue. These recipes are tested by Georgia Rudd.