Sweet potato rounds in sugar syrup… Yum!

Sweet potato…I had one laying at the bottom of my kitchen drawer, with some onions and potatoes. Satish had found it recently during our kitchen cleaning. I don’t exactly remember when I bought it, atleast a few months old. And I wasn’t sure why I had bought it in the first place, but today while blog hopping, I found this recipe. This is a Bengali dish, and the name is rangal alur pithe or sweet potato delight. The recipe called for one sweet potato. Perfect! Just the one I needed. All the ingredients were available. So I set forth to make this sweet dish. The yummy pics of sweet potato gulab jamuns from Indiras’s blog was still fresh in memory.

I had to make sure the sweet potato was foodworthy. So I boiled it, split it into two, and it looked as good as new. I used frozen grated coconut, and so that was easy too. It all came along pretty well, and I was glad to find a dessert that I really really liked…Thank you Cookerific team. You guys rock!
Step by step instructions to sweet goodness……………

Boil the sweet potato(one medium) till tender. Peel the skin, and mash the sweet potato. Add about 4 tbsp of all purpose flour( amount is variable, depending on the kind of sweet potato) to this ( add one spoon at a time, till the dough is formed enough to form into a ball). Keep in fridge for 15 min.

Make the syrup

Add one cup water to two cups sugar. Add 4 cardamom ponds crushed, and few strands of saffron. Heat over medium flame, stir often till all sugar is melted. Keep warm.

Make coconut filling

Combine half cup grated coconut with 1/4 cup sugar in a pan and cook on medium heat. The coconut starts turning brown. Try taking a small amount and see if it holds shape in the form of a ball. At this stage, remove from fire. Add one cardamom powdered to the mixture.

Boil & peel Dough Coconut filling
Filling and Frying the balls

Take a small scoop of the potato mixture,( if it is too sticky, drop the scoop of mixture into some all purpose flour, and roll into a ball) and form a ball. Flatten the ball slightly, and put some coconut mixture and close it up, just like making aloo paratha. Don’t overfill it. Again, roll the ball in some flour if the dough is too sticky. This tip works like a charm, and will help you make perfect round balls.

Deep fry the balls till golden brown, and then dip them in the sugar syrup.

Other sweet potato treats:

Sury’s Ranga alur puli.

Indira’s Sweet Potato Gulab Jamuns (especially for chocolate lovers)

My notes:

This dessert was just right ..not too sweet, and with so much flavor. It has got great looks, and is really simple to make, once you figure out the way to handle the sticky sweet potato. Next time, I am going to attemp Sury’s version, with the creamy filling.

If you have some coconut filling remaining, use it to garnish the dish or other sweets .