Steemit Iron Chef Act 02 round 07: Tropical purple sweet potato panna cotta

This is my second entry to this week's steemit iron chef competition. The theme was to use a common vegetable, since I came across some purple sweet potatoes I couldn't help but want to make a desert with them.

I only discovered purple sweet potatoes last year totally by accident, I brought them at a traditional market in pulau weh Indonesia, the people laughed at us for buying them and we didn't understand what they were saying to us, probably telling us they were purple but we had no idea. When I got home and started to prepare a dinner with them I was quite surprised. They were actually alot darker than these ones. I cooked them up and actually they looked quite unappetizing like a really dark purple mush, the colour seemed really strong like a dye. Like most purple vegetables they are extremely healthy so of course I ate them all up.

I knew that these purple potatoes would have the potential to make an eye catching desert. I had picked up some useful ingredients in a health food store in Kuala Lumpur and I had been travelling with them to lombok, these were the arrow root and agar agar used to form vegan jelly like foods.

Ingredients

Purple sweet potato
Arrow root
Agar agar
Coconut cream powder
Date syrup
Sweet potato chips
Crinckly lime
Mango couli
Crushed peanuts
Sour tamarind

I made the purple panna cotta by heating arrow root and water and whisking on a low heat after that I added the agar agar and then coconut cream powder, date syrup and some more water. Then I added finely chopped uncooked purple potatoes and simmered until potatoes was cooked stirring the whole time. As I didn't have scales and limited utensils it was a bit hit or miss as it was my first time experimenting with these ingredients. I had to blend the mixtures as not all the potato had broken down, then I left it to cool in a container, I don't have a refrigerator at the moment, so I left it over night but it's still quite soft, never the less it still holds its shapes when I used my ice cream scoop (brought with me in my luggage) to make it into a ball.

Just the other day I came across a tamarind tree and collected some of the pods, I was also surprised when I tried them to discover they were sour as I had only ever tried sweet ones. They are like the sour sweets I used to eat as a kid and they make your eyes pop out of your head. I thought this strong flavour would pair well with the desert along with the mango couli and crushed peanuts, because peanuts grow abundantly in this region. Also I've garnish with a crinkly lime which has a really strong and condensed zesty flavour.

🥑 🍎🥝 🍉 🍇 🍐🍓🍈🍋🍑 🍍🍊🍌🍏

For more health, nutrition, spirituality + more @celestialcow....

switching to a plant based diet 🌱 can change your life and change the world
✌️Join the food revolution now✊

All images are created by @celestialcow

Thanks for reading

.