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Sweet Potato Puff
3 cups hot riced sweet potatoes 3 tablespoons butter 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 tablespoon flour hot deep fat Add butter and seasonings to the hot riced potatoes, beating till smooth. Add well beaten egg, flour and baking powder. When well mixed, drop into the hot fat, fry till brown. They will puff up, increasing the original size. Serves 6.
A fritter built on hot mashed sweet potato, leavened with baking powder and fried in deep fat. The recipe assumes you will judge the fat by eye; a thermometer removes the guesswork.
- Fat temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature, only "hot deep fat." For a fritter of this kind 365-375F works well: much below that and the batter absorbs grease before it can set, much above and the outside colours before the interior is heated through.
- Work while hotThe potato must still be hot when the butter goes in, and the mixture warm when it hits the fat. Cold, stiff potato does not expand the same way and the fritters stay dense.
- Riced, not mashedA ricer or food mill gives a lump-free, unstretched texture. Machine-processing risks a pasty, heavy result.
- Moisture variesSweet potato varieties differ considerably in moisture, and the wetter orange-fleshed types now common may give a slacker mixture than the drier sorts. If the mixture will not hold on a spoon, add another half tablespoon of flour rather than more baking powder.
- Baking and rooting out the puffWork quickly at the end -- The baking powder goes in with the flour and egg at the last moment, as the recipe directs, so fry promptly once mixed rather than letting the mixture stand.
- Size and batchesDrop by rounded tablespoon and fry no more than five or six at a time; crowding drops the fat temperature. Two to three minutes a batch, turning once, is usually enough.
- YieldSix servings as given. Drain on a rack rather than paper so the undersides stay crisp.