Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Toasted Spices and Cilantro
Toasted coconut, whole spices and herbs enhance roasted sweet potatoes.
Bold texture and fresh flavor in simple sweet potatoes
Sweet potatoes too often are served cloyingly sweet and one-note soft. We wanted a better way, one that added flavor and texture, and let shine the natural sweetness of the potatoes, not added sugars.
We found our answer in India’s sabzi, a broad category of simple cooked vegetable dishes often eaten accompanied by flatbread. Though they vary widely by region, sabzi are dressed with heaps of whole spices, fresh herbs, chilies and other seasonings—a combination that adds texture as well as bold flavors.
For our sabzi, we roast sweet potatoes until lightly caramelized to deepen their flavor. We then dress them in skillet-toasted coconut; sesame, mustard and cumin seeds; plus a bit of jalapeño and garlic for bright and savory notes. The finished dish: Sweet potatoes with a sophisticated side.
Shaula Clark
Shaula Clark is a Boston-based writer and editor. Her six-year stint as managing editor of Milk Street’s magazine absolutely leveled up her cooking game—though her trusty canine sous chef, Roxie the Schipperke, remains unimpressed unless cheese is involved. In the kitchen, she likes to get weird, with experiments yielding both great success (absinthe sorbet) and dismal failure (liquid smoke-infused rice paper “bacon”). Thanks to a terrifyingly productive tomato garden, Milk Street’s salmorejo—a luscious Andalusian tomato soup—has become a particular favorite recipe. She is, for the record, also staunchly pro-ketchup. Disagreements over her stance on condiments may be sent to .
