Beet and Sweet Potato Chops

Garnished Chops

Sweet Potato Cakes sounded so tempting! The small number of ingredients made it look easy, so I went about collecting my supplies. In addition to the two sweet potatoes in the vegetable, there were 3 small beets. This was my first deviation from the original recipe.

I've recently replaced plain breadcrumbs with Japanese Panko Breadcrumbs but, for the life of me, could not find the box. Since it was being used as a binding agent, I reached for the jar of tapioca-rice starch instead, which turned out to be a 'happy accident' or serendipitous. The texture it produced was soft, yet 'bouncy', similar to turnip cakes. And this was the second deviation from the original recipe, although I eventually did find and add Panko breadcrumbs.

Serve with your choice of dip such as ketchup. I served it with kasundi, the Bengali substitute for French's mustard.




Ingredients
2 large sweet potatoes
3 small beets
1 egg (optional)
3/4 cup tapioca-rice flour or rice flour
1/4 cup Panko or plain breadcrumbs
2 Tbsp. sour cream
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
2 Tbsp. cilantro, minced
salt and pepper to taste
6 Tbsp. vegetable oil

Garnish:
Sliced onions
Sliced jalapeno pepper

Directions

1. Scrub sweet potatoes and beets.
2. Pierce them all over with a fork and wrap each in wax paper.
3. Place in microwave, cook for 5 minutes, turn over and cook for another 5 minutes.
4. Remove from microwave and set aside to cool.
5. Peel skin off and mash sweet potatoes.
6. Peel skin off beets, grate and mash along with sweet potatoes and remaining ingredients, except oil.
7. Heat oil, shape mixture into chops and shallow fry until golden brown.
8. Serve as an appetizer, garnished with sliced onions and jalapeno peppers.