Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Kumara with wasabi

I seem to have no time just lately. I've been baking and cooking and wrapping presents but have had no time to post here.

This is a meal I made a couple of weeks ago. My brother had been visiting a friend in Melbourne and came back raving about kumara (sweet potato) with wasabi. Here's my take on it:

A kumara …


… boiled until soft …


… put through a ricer …


… then mixed to a dough with an egg, a little flour, and some grated wasabi.

Here's my wasabi plant:


This is the bit I picked:


And the root peeled, ready for …


… grating:


I forgot to take a photo of the dough until half of it was already gnocchi …


… or at least half way …


… to being gnocchi:


I  cooked them …


… and fried up some mushrooms and zucchini …


… mixed in the drained gnocchi …


… and tossed them around until they were browned and a little crispy on the outside …


… then I ate them:


They were nice, but I couldn't taste the wasabi at all. Maybe it doesn't like being cooked - the kumara my brother had was just mashed with the wasabi added at the last minute.

2 comments:

  1. Cooking the wasabi at high temperatures drives off all the volatiles that give wasabi its flavour. There is an article at wasabi.org that explains the reasons. There are also a lot of wasabi based recipes at www.wasabikitchen.com. Adding wasabi to a dish just before serving is the best way of using it, although there are a few ways of using it in cooking. Some of these recipes are on the wasabi kitchen site. Enjoy.

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  2. Ah. I had a feeling it might be something like that.

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