Description
I didn’t actually make this one, but like all Yunnan food I’ve tried, it’s delicious, so I asked for the recipe. It was one of the many delicious dishes my partner and I tried in a charming little Yunnan restaurant in Beijing, called ‘Yushu’ down a side street off Wanfujing.
It’s actually very very simple, the spicy Yunnan pickles create all the flavour. It’s a variation (restaurant version) of the Yunnan dish Lǎonǎi Yángyù (老奶洋芋), loosely translating as Grandma’s Potato.
This is pretty much all you need to do:
Steam two large sweet potatoes;
Steam a small bowl of brown rice;
Mash the sweet potatoes and the rice up until smooth;
Add a handful or two (depending on your tastes) of Yunnan spicy pickles;
Add some chopped spring onions and/or Chinese chives.
This one has been prettified using a tian and garnished with fried purple potato root strips, a common Chinese restaurant dish garnish.
It’s worth mentioning that the sweet potato is a much better option that the potato, which is a source of simple carbohydrates, and contains very little nutritional weight (only a teeny tiny amount of Vitamin C). The sweet potato on the other hand, is a low-GI food, but it can be enjoyed as we would a potato, baked, fried, mashed. I love the fact that in China street food sellers bake dozens and dozens of sweet potatoes in a tandoori-style oven approaching winter. Such an easy option, if you don’t have much time to cook in evening, you can make one of these in about 5 minutes, or cut the sweet potato in half and add a filling of your choice (just like the British street food I grew up with, the jacket potato).
