Callaloo and sweet potato cakes

M...eat...less

My health conscious cousin Lauren came over and cooked two sweet potatoes. She was determined to stay away from processed carbs and have curry goat with sweet potatoes. Needless to say she ended up eating curry goat with white rice with a side of bun and cheese. I ended up with two sweet  potatoes in my refrigerator for about a week. So instead of wasting them I decided to make a recipe to utilize them. I envisioned something sort of like a crab cake, soft on the inside with a crispy exterior that would be great with tartar sauce.

So many times, we end up with things in our refrigerator that end up going bad, and even if they don’t go bad they just end up being thrown out because they have been in there so long. I had some callaloo that was getting old and I had the potatoes that were pushing one week wrapped in foil. I figured combining them into a cake and frying them would be the most sensible thing to do. And what I did was make the cakes and store in the freezer, so any time I want a quick lunch I can take one or two out, pop them in the flour egg wash and panko and quickly fry.

These were pretty yummy, especially with the fresh onion and scallion and hot pepper garnish. The funny thing is, I was out of salt, as in I was actually out of salt (when does that ever happen?). So I used just one bouillon cube in this whole thing. I didn’t add salt to my egg wash, so my cakes were a bit on the low sodium side which I didn’t find to be a big deal. In the recipe however I added a little salt to the egg wash just to add the balance mine lacked.

This recipe made about 10 cakes and I only fried three. The rest are in my freezer for use any time when I’m hungry. I highly recommend dipping these in tartar sauce for that crab cake feel. The callaloo and potato mix is really creamy, it has a nice sweetness from the sweet potatoes. Good to know food that almost made the trash can come together and be so yummy.

Ingredients (printable recipe)

For the Sautee Callaloo

3 cups chopped callaloo

1 large tomato chopped

1 medium onion chopped

2 tablespoon coconut oil

1 bouillon cube

4 tablespoon water

For the cakes

Sautee callaloo

2 sweet potatoes boiled and mashed

1 egg

1 cup flour

1 tablespoon Onion powder

½ teaspoon Paprika

1 tablespoon Honey

Pam cooking spray

For frying the cakes

1 cup flour

2 cups panko bread crumbs

1 egg

1 cup milk

½ teaspoon salt

Enough oil for frying

For garnish

Chopped onion

Chopped scallion

Hot pepper

Instructions

• In a bowl crush the sweet potato into a fine mash.
• In a saucepan heat the coconut oil and sauté the onions and tomatoes
• Add the bouillon cube and callaloo mix
• Add the water to the mix and cover, allow it to cook for 5 minutes
• Add the sauté callaloo to the mashed sweet potato along with the egg, flour, onion powder, paprika and honey
• The dough will be very sticky
• Spray a baking sheet with non stick spray and spoon the soft batter unto the sheet
• Spray your hands and press them down to form the cake shape
• Place in the freezer and freeze until solid about 30 to 40 minutes
• Once they are solid remove from the freezer, you can fry them all at once or make in batches. Store the unused portions in a zip loc bag in the freezer.
• heat some oil in a pan to shallow fry
• Beat together salt, milk and eggs
• Place flour in a dish
• Take the frozen patty and toss in flour dip in the egg wash and then into the panko
• Place into the hot oil and fry on both sides until golden brown about 5 minutes per side.
• Place on a cooling rack to cool
• Serve garnished with scallion, peppers and onions, make sure to dip in tartar sauce and enjoy

Xoxo Greedygirl