Four Ways with Baked Sweet Potatoes
Excerpted from Clodagh's Weeknight Kitchen: Easy & Exciting Dishes to Liven Up Your Recipe Repertoire by Clodagh McKenna. Published by Kyle Books, an imprint of Octopus Publishing, 2021, photographs by Dora Kazmierak. Used with permission.
- Servings: 4
This recipe is from Clodagh McKenna's seventh cookbook, Clodagh's Weeknight Kitchen. She wrote it during the pandemic to help home cooks make easy, stress-free, but also flavorful and nourishing meals. Her approach to meal planning and recipes work for better and easier times as well. This tasty and versatile recipe is from the chapter about "Cupboard Stand-bys" which shows how to turn pantry staples, like sweet potatoes and canned chickpeas, into delicious dinners.
From Clodagh:
"Baked sweet potatoes are so good for us, so I love coming up with delicious ways to serve them. They take basically no work to prepare and if don’t have much time to cook then just buy a good-quality hummus. I am sure you will love one or two of these ways to enjoy them."
Ingredients
- 4 sweet potatoes
- 1 tablespoon rapeseed oil (canola oil in the US)
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- FOR THE HUMMUS:
- 50ml (2fl oz) extra virgin olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, peeled
- 500g (1lb 2oz) canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- Zest and juice of 1 lemon
- 60g (2¼oz) whole almonds
- 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- FOUR TOPPINGS:
- A small dollop of Greek yogurt and harissa paste
- Basil Pesto (store-bought or homemade) and chopped whole almonds
- Crumbled feta and chopped black olives
- Crispy cooked pancetta and chopped avocado
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6.
- Clean the sweet potatoes, place them on a baking tray and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the potatoes from the oven and brush the outer skins with the rapeseed oil, so that they crisp. Return the potatoes to the oven for a further 10 minutes until the skins are crispy.
- While the potatoes are cooking, make the hummus. Place all the ingredients in a food processor and whizz until well blended. If needed, add a small drop of cold water to get a smooth consistency.
- Remove the baked sweet potatoes from the oven, cut them in half length-ways and spoon the hummus on top followed by your chosen toppings. Season with a generous twist of black pepper, if you like, then serve.
