Vegetable
Sweet potato
BoniatoMoniatoIpomoea batatas
It looks like a potato with ambitions, but in the oven it turns almost into a pudding: slow heat converts some of its starch into sugar.
When
Around: Sept–Jan · At its best: Oct–Nov
Around: Sept–Jan · At its best: Oct–Nov
Around: Mar–Jul · At its best: Apr–May
Around here
In Catalonia the sweet potato belongs to the Castanyada: on All Saints' night people eat roast chestnuts, baked sweet potatoes and panellets, with a glass of muscat. Some families even put boiled sweet potato in the panellet dough instead of potato.
At the market
- It should be hard from end to end, with no soft or wrinkled patches.
- Smooth skin of an even colour; avoid ones with cracks, mould or sprouts.
- For roasting whole, pick medium ones of similar thickness so they cook together.
At home
- Keep it out of the fridge: cold makes the centre hard and spoils the flavour.
- Somewhere cool, dry and dark, it keeps for two or three weeks.
- Once cut, wrap it and use it within a couple of days.
If you have too much
- Roast the lot in one go and freeze the flesh as purée, in portions.
- Freeze a sweet potato and pumpkin soup: it keeps well for three months.
- The purée later goes into cakes, gnocchi or panellets.
In the kitchen
- Baked whole in its skin for a good hour, until it oozes syrup.
- In the embers or next to the chestnuts, wrapped in foil.
- Mashed with olive oil, salt and a pinch of paprika.
- As oven chips, like potatoes, with rosemary.
- In a soup with pumpkin and a little ginger.
- Roasted and split open, with a spoonful of yoghurt and honey for pudding.
What it brings
Per 100 g, raw.
- Energy
- 86 kcal
- Water
- 77% water
- Carbs
- 20.1 g
- Sugars
- 4.2 g
- Fibre
- 3 g
- Protein
- 1.6 g
Stands out for
- High in vitamin A709 µg · 89% of what you need in a day
- Source of potassium337 mg · 17% of what you need in a day
- Source of fibre3 g
Data from the USDA (FoodData Central). See the full table ↗ · How we decide what stands out
Goes with
- ChestnutOct–DecBefore potatoes, chestnuts were winter bread in many European mountains. Today they mostly mean smoke in the street and hot newspaper cones in your hands.
- PumpkinSept–FebIt's harvested in autumn and, whole, keeps for months without a fridge: it was the vegetable that lasted till February. In Spanish, «giving someone pumpkins» means turning them down.
- AppleAug–FebIt's harvested in late summer and autumn, but cold stores keep it on sale all year. In season, freshly picked, it crunches differently.
- Saffron milk capSept–DecCut it and it bleeds orange milk; handle it too much and it bruises green. Both are normal, and both help you recognise it.