This recipe came about with wanting to use up half a can of coconut cream and half a sweet potato that were lurking in the fridge, the resulting soup is so delicious that I have been making it ever since.
For 4 portions
750 ml light stock – either vegetable or chicken
500 grams sweet potato – peeled and cut into small cubes
80 ml coconut cream
1 teaspoon smoked picante paprika/pimenton
1/2 teaspoon coarsly ground black pepper
Juice of 1/2 a small lime
sea salt
Fresh coriander leaves – roughly chopped
Put the sweet potato, a little salt and the stock in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer for about ten minutes until the potato is cooked and soft.
Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
Take the pan off the heat and purée the soup with a hand blender until smooth.
Reheat the soup. Check the seasoning adding more salt if necessary.
These slightly sweet breakfast buns were inspired by an article on what to do with bananas that had got too soft. In the piece one of the cooks suggested making banana and cardamom puris. I just love anything flavoured with cardamoms and the idea of mixing the spice with bananas was very appealing. Puris are made from a rich yeast dough, which of course can be baked as well as fried. I replaced the butter and milk in the puri recipe with coconut cream, some slivers of fresh coconut would add to this flavour, but I thought of that after I had made the buns. I was forgetting that I have some coconut flesh in the freezer, so next time…
250 grams whole meal spelt flour
7 grams fresh yeast / 3.5 grams powdered yeast
6 green cardamom pods
2 medium sized ripe bananas
120 ml coconut cream
2 teaspoons soft brown sugar
Egg white and more sugar for a topping
Put the flour into a large mixing bowl.
Add the seeds from the cardamom pods, the sugar and the yeast. Mix well.
Peel and either mash or pulse the bananas in a food processor. You don’t want a purée but some texture remaining.
Add the coconut cream to the bananas and mix.
Make a well in the centre of the flour mix and pour in the banana and coconut cream. Mix in to form a sticky dough.
Cover the bowl with a clean tea cloth and leave in a warm drought free place for a couple of hours until it has doubled in size.
Flour your work surface and tip the dough onto it. Knead the dough for a few minutes then divide into 8 equal balls.
Place on a baking tray and again in a warm drought free place leave to prove for 30 minutes.
Heat the oven to 175 C and bake the buns for 10 minutes.
Turn the oven down to 150 C and bake for another 5 minutes.
Take the tray out of the oven and brush each bun with egg white then sprinkle on a little brown sugar. Put the buns back in the oven for 7-10 minutes until the tops are nicely browned.
