Batatas, or Sweet Potatoes

What are they? They come from South and Central America, and they're potatoes, or at least they look like it. They're just slightly reddish, sweet and delicate in flavor. They're probably available all over the world by now, although they're most common in the tropics, where they're grown the most. For some people they're still not very familiar. What a shame!

As you can guess, batatas owe their sweet taste to a fairly high sugar content (somewhere, I don't remember where anymore, I read that it's about 3%). 100 g of raw batatas contain (I'm relying on the immortal Wikipedia) about 111 kcal, 69 g water, 24 g carbohydrates, 1.6 g protein, fiber, vitamins A, C, E, K and the B group, plus calcium, zinc and potassium. As you can see, they're very nutritious.

Batatas remind me a little of pumpkin and a little of carrots. I don't know why myself. Probably because of their characteristic sweetness.

Sometimes I use them instead of pumpkin, and sometimes instead of potatoes.

You can boil them, bake them, fry them, or make them into puree. You can prepare them peeled or with the skin on. They taste great with fish and white meat, e.g. chicken or turkey, which is why they're often used as a side dish or as stuffing for the turkey on Thanksgiving in the USA. Cooked or baked and cut into cubes, or turned into dumplings (e.g. gnocchi or kopytka, Polish potato dumplings), they go wonderfully with pasta and salads. According to Wikipedia, in Asia batatas are also used to make desserts and alcoholic drinks, and their leaves are prepared like spinach.

I don't cook with batatas all that often, but I like them because they're so versatile, they taste good, and they give dishes an unusual flavor.