Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Sweet potato colcannon with wild greens


Just a quick post today, I mixed this up yesterday with stuff hanging around in my fridge.

Colcannon is an Irish side dish of boiled cabbage or kale mixed into mashed potatoes. But in this wildcrafted take, I used healthier sweet potatoes and foraged greens (in this case, chickweed, but you could try it with lots of things). 

It's really simple, but it's the little additions to the mashed potatoes which make it so good: caramelized onion, lots of garlic and butter, a splash of cream. And of course, your wild greens. 

No recipe really needed: you should play around and find what works for you, but here is what I did:


Sweet potato & chickweed colcannon

Serves 3-4 as a side dish

3 cups of peeled, chunked sweet potato
3 cups of chickweed or other wild greens, roughly chopped
1/2 cup white onion, diced
3 large garlic cloves, minced
1/2 stick of butter
1/4 heavy cream
Sea salt or kosher salt
Olive oil
  1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the sweet potato and cook until soft enough to pierce with a fork.
  2. In a separate pan, heat olive oil and add the onion. Sauté until translucent, then add the garlic and a sprinkling of salt. Continue to cook till the garlic is fragrant.
  3. If you're using bitter or tough greens, like bastard cabbage, garlic mustard, etc. give them a blanch. For chickweed I didn't need to.
  4. Mash your potatoes with the butter and cream. Add the onion, garlic and greens. Serve immediately, but it also reheats well.

No comments:

Post a Comment