Misti Alu'r Bhortha - Mashed Sweet Potatoes

 

Misti Alu'r Bhortha

Sweet potatoes are so comforting and tasty when they're baked. It's a lot easier to wash them, pierce with a fork or sharp-tipped knife all over, wrap in wax paper and microwave for 10 minutes, turning over at half time. Once they soften and the skin peels away easily, the sweet potato can be mashed with a fork and combined with mustard oil, minced onions, minced green chilies and salt. Several vegetables are steamed and mashed in this way into a bhortha. 

We'd run out of green chilies, but there's always a bottle of Priya green chili pickle in the fridge. It's the closest thing to kasundi because the sliced chilies are pickled in mustard sauce. This is what I used in this bhortha, so the flavour of mustard was accentuated.

Served as a first course to an Indian meal, bhortha goes well alongside lentils or dal with hot, steamed rice.

Dried Fruit and Nut Sprinkles

Dried Fruit & Nut Sprinkles

Called Choori in Hindi, this muesli-like mixture is made with left-over chapatis or tortillas. I found the recipe on the internet. 

Instead of using excess tortillas for bird food, they can be toasted and pulsed in a blender with nuts, desiccated coconut, dried fruits such as dates and raisins and sugar, unrefined sugar, coconut sugar or jaggery. Choori can be served as a breakfast cereal, sprinkled over ice cream or eaten as a snack. Cooled and stored in an air-tight container, Choori can last for several weeks.

I used a couple of excess flour tortillas and a mixture of ingredients that I had at home, including almonds, unsweetened and dried desiccated coconut, dates, raisins and coconut sugar. The ingredients were blended together to a grainy texture and seasoned with cardamom powder (you can also use cinnamon powder) to give it that unique Indian flavour.