The chocolate cake that's made from sweet potato and other recipes that are blowing my mind

If the veggies in your kitchen hosted an awards ceremony, aloo would be Vidya Balan. Versatile and excellent in every form. Crisp French fries, buttery mash, stuffed into a puri… we’re potato people, through and through. But now that we’re firmly planted indoors, growing roots on the couch, maybe you’re looking for a less carb-loaded multitasker to please your palate. We’re officially campaigning for sweet potato — the sexy aloo‘s oft-ignored rakhi sister. And yes, we have four sweet potato recipes to prove that she’s just as versatile.

An article in Healthline highlights the many benefits of this pretty tuber. Sweet potatoes, a starchy root vegetable, are a great source of fibre, vitamins, and minerals. The fibre and antioxidants help improve gut health, and they’re incredibly rich in beta-carotene. One cup of baked orange sweet potato with skin provides more than seven times the amount of beta-carotene that the average adult needs per day. Bugs Bunny had no idea.

But we did. Our recipe book , What’s In Your Dabba, holds a treasure trove of sweet potato recipes from our favourite influencers — recipes that, like Cinderella’s godmother’s wand, dressed up the humble yam, and presented it in a shiny new avatar that you never dreamed it could take on.

From a sweet potato chocolate cake from baker Rachel Goenka, to a sweet potato khichdi from Sonali Bendre, these recipes will teach you never to judge a vegetable by its flashier and more famous sister. Turns out, sweet, savoury, mashed or crumb-fried, sakarkandi is just as versatile. The Naseeruddin Shah to aloo‘s Vidya.

4 sweet potato recipes that will blow your mind

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Photo credit: Vernika Awal/ What's in Your Dabba

Sonali Bendre’s sweet potato khichdi

Ingredients:

• 2 sweet potatoes, boiled and diced
• 1 cup roasted and ground peanuts
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 5-6 curry leaves
• 2 green chillies, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp grated coconut
• A handful of finely chopped coriander
• Salt to taste

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a pan
2. Add the cumin and mustard seeds
3. Once they begin to crackle, add the green chillies and curry leaves
4. To this, add the peanuts
5. Next, add the sweet potatoes and salt to taste
6. Mix well
7. Garnish with coconut and coriander and serve

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Photo credit: Vernika Awal/ What's in Your Dabba

Rachel Goenka’s sweet potato chocolate cake

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 65 gm butter
• 12 gm sugar free sachet
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 egg whites
• 65 gm sugar-free chocolate
• 120 gm mashed sweet potato
• 261 gm flour

For the sauce:

• 100 gm sugar-free chocolate
• 100 gm cream
• 100 gm milk

Directions:

1. Melt the chocolate and butter, and add in the mashed potato
2. Make a Sabayon mixture with the egg yolks and sugar-free chocolate, and fold in chocolate mixture
3. Whip the egg whites and fold in chocolate and sabayon batter and add flour
4. Bake at 200 degrees c for 16 minutes
5. Serve with warm sauce

For the sauce

1. For the sauce, warm the milk and cream in a saucepan and fold the melted sugar-free chocolate in the cream.

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Photo credit: Vernika Awal/ What's in Your Dabba

• 1/2 cup sorghum flour
• 1/2 cup porridge flour (oats ground into flour)
• 1/2 cup millet flour
• 1 medium sweet potato boiled and mashed
• 1⁄2 cup spinach finely chopped
• 1⁄2 cup broccoli finely grated
• 2 green chilies (paste)
• Handful coriander leaves
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 avocado
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds
• Handful chia seeds or any other seeds of your choice
• Salt to taste

Directions:
1. In a large bowl, mix all the flours first, followed by all the dry ingredients, then add the vegetables
2. Next bind all the ingredients into fine dough that’s easy to roll.
3. Now make even-sized balls out of the dough and roll out into a circle as we do for chapati dough.
4. Heat a pan and cook the rolled-out thepla on it. When one side is done, flip it over and add some oil to the half-cooked thepla. Flip it again. Cook until golden-brown.
8. Serve the healthy thepla with nurture raita, curry, pickles or just tea.

Overnight Nurture Raita

Ingredients:

• 2 cup whole oats
• 2 cups coconut yoghurt
• 1 carrots grated
• 2 tbsp cranberry or any other dry berries
• 1/2 apple chopped in small cubes
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• Himalayan salt to taste
• 1/4 tsp red chilli powder
• 1 tbsp chia seeds
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds powder
• 1 tbsp desiccated coconut

Garnish (optional)

• Handful chopped fresh mint
• Handful pecan nuts or any other nuts
• 1/2 apple chopped into small pieces

Directions:
1. Place all the nurture ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly.
2. Pour the mixture into two small glasses or jars and leave it in the fridge overnight or for three hours to set.
3. When ready to serve, sprinkle some hand-crushed pecan nuts, apple, chopped mint and serve with protein bread or protein thepla

Vegetable Salsa

Ingredients:

• 1/2 carrot grated
• 1/2 cucumber grated
• 1/4 beetroot grated
• 1 small tomato finely chopped
• Juice of 1/2 lime
• Himalayan salt to taste
• Black pepper to taste

Directions:

1. In a bowl, mix all the above ingredients. Taste and adjust accordingly
To assemble, spread the nurture raita on the protein thepla, followed by the vegetable salsa and finish with a sprinkle of pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

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Photo credit: Vernika Awal/ What's in Your Dabba

Sophie Choudry’s quinoa and sweet potato cutlets

Ingredients:

• ½ cup quinoa
• 2 sweet potatoes, boiled and mashed
• 2 tbsp roasted chana powder
• 1 tbsp roasted kasturi methi
• 2 green chillies, finely chopped
• ½ tsp grated ginger
• ½ tsp red chilli powder
• ½ tsp cumin powder
• ½ tsp ground pepper
• ½ tsp chaat masala
• 2 cups water
• 5-6 tbsp oil

Directions:

1. Soak the quinoa for two-three hours and then boil it for two-three minutes till it fluffs up.
2. Keep aside to cool.
3. Add the sweet potatoes, green chillies, ginger, red chilli powder, cumin powder, black pepper, kasuri methi, chaat masala and chana powder.
4. Mix it all together and make small tikkis out of it.
5. Keep in the refrigerator for an hour so that the tikkis firm up.
6. Smear oil on a pan. Fry the tikkis in the pan till they are golden on both sides.
7. Serve with a chutney of your choice.