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Recipes with sweet potato leaves

3 recipes that use sweet potato leaves, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Kalembula, takes 30 minutes. It is most often cooked with onion, garlic and red palm oil.

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Calulu

Calulu is what Luanda families cook when the whole family comes for Sunday lunch, and the Ilha's fish sellers know the order by heart: a piece of dried fish for depth, a firm fresh fish for sweetness. The two are layered in a pot with onion, tomato, okra, aubergine and sweet potato leaves, then simmered in red palm oil until the sauce turns silky from the okra and tastes of the sea, smoke and greens all at once. It is served with funge, feijão de óleo de palma and a little hot sauce. Salted dried fish needs a long soak to draw out the salt, so start it the day before; skipping that step is the classic way to ruin the pot. Chef's tip: lay the fresh fish on top and leave it alone, shaking the pot rather than stirring, so the pieces stay whole.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Kalembula

Kalembula grows wherever there is a patch of sweet potato, so it is as common in Eastern Province villages as it is in the backyard gardens of Kitwe, and it is usually picked minutes before it is cooked. The heart-shaped leaves are softer than pumpkin leaves and need no peeling; they wilt into a smooth, slightly mucilaginous relish with a pleasant, faintly bitter edge. Here the onion and tomato are fried first into a sweet base, the leaves go in after, and groundnut powder enriches the pot at the finish. Serve beside nshima and beans, or with fried kapenta for the non-vegetarians in the house. Overcooking turns it olive-drab and mushy, so stop as soon as the leaves are tender. Chef's tip: shred the leaves very finely, almost like a chiffonade, so they cook in minutes and stay green.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Potato leaf stew with groundnut

Freetown's Sunday pots and the cookshops of Lumley and Kissy turn out potato leaf almost as often as cassava leaf: tender sweet potato greens shredded finely, then simmered in red palm oil with onion and Scotch bonnet until the oil floats to the top. It is usually rich with fish or beef; this meat-free pot leans on a good spoonful of groundnut paste instead, which makes the sauce creamy and nutty and gives it real body. Spoon it over a mound of white rice, the way it is eaten all over Sierra Leone. Chef's tip: wait until the palm oil gathers in a red layer on the surface before you take the pot off the heat; that is the sign the stew is properly cooked.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Goes well with sweet potato leaves