East African Sweet Potato Pudding
A Feels Good/Tastes Good Dessert
Dara O’Brien
By Dara O’Brien
Creative Director, Lake Isle Press
Mouthfeel is as important to me as taste when it comes to food. If I’m worried about the way a dish I’ve never tried before is going to feel once I bite into it, I’m kind of scared to try it. Textural trepidation—is that a thing?
So let’s talk about pudding, because pudding is right up my alley. It’s smooth and creamy, like ice cream, but it’s not as cold and doesn’t melt and change texture as easily. I am a major fan of pudding. I like it so much a friend of mine once made a birthday pudding for me instead of a cake. (My T Fine Chocolate: A classic.)
Oh, wait a minute, I should clarify. I’m a fan of chocolate pudding. My misgivings when it comes to untried flavors and textures translates to my not yet having eaten any pudding variations beyond chocolate—except for pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. Before you ask, correct, I’ve never tasted tapioca pudding. Or rice pudding. And I am aware that the fact that I’ve never tried rice pudding is really crazy because I love rice of all kinds. I just don’t know how it would be cold in a pudding. There’s the rub.
All this occurred to me when I came across Angela Shelf Medearis’s recipe for East African Sweet Potato Pudding from her cookbook “The New African-American Kitchen” published by Lake Isle Press. Since I’ve had pumpkin pie, this recipe wasn’t going to be that big a stretch. But this classic of Southern Black cuisine is rooted in Africa, and it’s flavored with cardamom and saffron, spices I am just beginning to explore. So I decided to expand my pudding horizons a bit and also make my first pudding from scratch.
I’m writing this smack dab in the middle of July, and you may be thinking that a summer dessert should spotlight fresh summer produce—blueberry crumble, cherry pie, peach cobbler—not sweet potatoes. The thing is, I am not a pie fan. Those fresh seasonal summer desserts that send most people into raptures aren’t all that appealing to me. Pie crust is meh, and the filling is too oozy. It’s a texture thing.
Sweet potato pie sort of screams “autumn,” but this light, rather delicate sweet potato pudding fits in any time of year. It’s accomplished with just a few ingredients that aren’t hard to get, and it’s easy to make. Plus, you don’t need to have a stash of perfectly timed ripe fruit at the ready, and there’s little chance of getting stuck with a bad batch.
I followed the recipe as directed, with the exception of substituting saffron threads for ground saffron. I had never baked with saffron before—and have barely ever used it—so I was in the dark about how to make the substitution. I did some quick research and doubled the amount to one teaspoon to adjust from ground saffron to threads. I have since read that when baking with saffron threads, steep them first in a hot liquid. I didn’t do that. I’ll try it next time.
The sweet potatoes were almost completely broken down after cooking in the hot liquid for an hour (with regular stirring), but after pushing the mixture through a strainer as the recipe suggests I still used an immersion blender because I wanted a really smooth result. In the end, the texture was perfect.
There’s room to play around quite a bit with this recipe. I didn’t find it very sweet, so you might want to top it with whipped cream or add a little drizzle of honey or maple syrup. Add cinnamon, perhaps. Make a vegan version with coconut milk. Sub in a little brown sugar, maybe. And, of course, I wonder how it would change if I soaked the saffron threads before using them. You might even want to serve it warm as a side dish. But it’s also lovely as is. Just simmer it low and slow, and you should have a happy result.
East African Sweet Potato Pudding
Click here for printable recipe.
Yield: 8 servings
INGREDIENTS
1 quart water
6 medium sweet potatoes (2 pounds), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
3 cups milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground saffron
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
PREPARATION
In a heavy saucepan, boil the 1 quart water. Drop in the sweet potatoes. Cook the potatoes, uncovered, until tender, 25 to 30 minutes. Drain the potatoes in a sieve or colander and return them to the pan. Add the milk, cream, sugar, saffron, and cardamom. Stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, bring the mixture to a boil over moderate heat.
Reduce the heat to low and simmer, uncovered, about 1 hour, stirring often. The pudding is done when it is smooth and is thick enough to hold its shape almost solidly in the spoon.
With the back of the spoon, rub the pudding through a fine sieve into a serving bowl. Refrigerate the pudding until cool. Before serving, sprinkle the top with a little additional ground cardamom.
East African Sweet Potato Pudding
from “The New African-American Kitchen”
by Angela Shelf Medearis (The Kitchen Diva!)
Lake Isle Press, 2008
Chef, author, and culinary historian Angela Shelf Medearis, also known as the Kitchen Diva, presents a compilation of over 200 traditional recipes with African-American roots. These authentic recipes originated in slave quarters, plantations, church suppers, and inter-generational family kitchens. With dishes from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas, The New African-American Kitchen presents each recipe with its cultural context, and includes incisive overviews of the African kitchen and the roots of soul cooking, Caribbean culinary history, and the contributions to America’s culinary heritage made by slave cooks. Published in 2008, The New African-American Kitchen deepens our understanding of the rich Black culinary traditions that continue to shape American and global cuisine.