Cold sweet potato soup
Welcome to To Vegetables, With Love, a celebration of a vegetable life, less ordinary. Find archived recipes on my recipe index.
My book Tenderheart is available from Books are Magic, Kitchen, Arts and Letters, Book Larder, Bold Fork Books and also here or here.
I have done a lot of traveling this summer. This is uncharacteristic of me. Most summers, our family takes one short vacation but the rest of the time, we sweat it out in the city.
Being away from home is not always easy. I miss the rhythm of daily life, my morning coffee ritual, my daily trips to the grocery store or weekly visits to the greenmarket. Most of all, I miss regular food.
Eating while traveling is regimented. You must eat at set mealtimes - what are we having for breakfast? Where should we go for lunch? What do you feel like for dinner? Every meal must be planned to meet the approval of each traveler. I keep endless and evolving lists of restaurants saved to Google Maps, usually recommendations from friends, from social media or from research. Lots of these are restaurants with vegetarian offerings. As someone who travels with non-vegetarians, my restaurant lists are extremely important in quickly finding an option that will satisfy diverse palettes.
Often I find it hard to keep up with eating in restaurants. Dining out often provides me with much bigger and richer meals than what I eat at home. I miss my fruit and big bowls of greens.
When I was in Sydney in July, I went from one meal to another, still feeling full from the last. I always overeat when I am in Sydney, possessed with a fervour to consume all the foods that I’ve missed. There’s my mum’s cooking of course, but there is also the snack foods that I grew up with (Smith’s Cheese and Onion chips and banana Paddle Pops), yum cha (dim sum), deep fried potato scallops from the local fish and chip shop, apple turnovers from the bakery, lime cordial, Ribena, so many noodles. The food is impeccable, but I missed that sensation of feeling hungry, and that subsequent satiation that comes from the first bite when famished.
When we arrived in Tokyo, the hunger returned. The meals are generally lighter and portions smaller. We walked endlessly in the extreme and damp heat. When we ate, we were tired and ravenous. We started and ended each day with treats from 7-11 or Lawson - ume onigiri, egg sandwiches, little pots of tofu custard, fizzy water with bubbles so big they hurt to swallow (the way I like it). Yakitori, surprisingly good for vegetarians, became a favourite during this trip - chunks of eggplant, shiitake or shishito peppers on a skewer, perfectly salty, slightly smokey. I lived for the cold soba dipped in sesame sauce, or tororo soba where the chilled noodles were dipped in sticky grated mountain yam and soy sauce. Such a good option to cool our bodies. I will be sharing a list of a few of my favourite Tokyo eats this trip soon for paid subscribers – keep an eye out for it. For now, I share a recipe inspired by my Tokyo travels.
On the morning of our departure from Tokyo, I tried a dish called ‘sweet potato soup’. As I took the first spoonful, I was surprised - I didn’t expect it to be cold, nor so light. It was vegan too, slightly sweet and earthy, with a velvety texture.
When I got back to New York, I picked up some satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potatoes) from my local store and got to work recreating this cold, creamy magic. Normally I wouldn’t touch sweet potatoes in the summer, but this was so perfect on a hot day, I felt it needed to be created right now.
COOK / EAT / SHARE
NEW RECIPES
Inspired by the flavours of spanokopita, here’s a new dish of crispy gnocchi with spinach and feta. I really enjoyed developing this one as it has a fun technique of tenderizing the spinach leaves in the feta! Smooth, silky and salty - YUM. Also, works well with vegan feta too (I like Violife brand)
Have you tried my cold tomato and kimchi with soba noodle soup yet? I recommend!
Some season-less recipe suggestions - meaning, make them in any season!
Quick ravioli with mint yoghurt, pine nuts and brown butter
NEW YORK EVENT
I will be speaking with Priya Krishna at James Beard Foundation Platform on September 18 at 6.30pm. Bites from Tenderheart will be served and there will be books for sale. It has been a while since I have done a signing, but I’d love to see you. Tickets are available here and use discount code chefsept10 for 10% discount.
🥦 My cookbook, Tenderheart is for cooking vegetables, all year round. Pick up your copy here. It is also mostly vegan (or vegan-izable) and gluten-free adaptable.
THIS WEEK’S RECIPE
Cold sweet potato soup
© Hetty Lui McKinnon for To vegetables, With Love 2024