yam pancakes

I've seen a couple of recipes for sweet potato cakes or croquettes lately. They looked delicious but it took a couple of weeks before I remembered to pick up sweet potatoes at the store. While roasting them would be my first choice, the night I made these I didn't have a lot of time, so I went with the steaming method. I subbed a couple of shallots for the leek in the original recipe, as I was leekless but the rest comes from Sprouted Kitchen. And the dough was very sticky, so I was grateful for my scoop to form these, drop into the pan and then flatten a bit with a fork.

Yam Pancakes (adapted very slightly from Sprouted Kitchen)
1 1/2 lbs peeled sweet potatoes, cut into large chunks
2 tsp butter
2 shallots, diced
2 tsp soy sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
salt, pinch of cayenne pepper
1/2 c unbleached flour
1 egg, well beaten

Yogurt Sauce
1/2 c plain yogurt
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp chopped basil
2 tbsp chopped lemongrass

Steam the potatoes until tender and set aside.

Melt the butter and saute the shallots until tender. Mash the potatoes and add the shallots, soy sauce, garlic, salt, cayenne and the egg. Add the flour and mix until the mixture holds together. Add flour if it seems very wet.

Heat a bit of oil and butter in a large pan, enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Scoop the mixture into balls and drop into the oil. Continue until the pan is full, allowing space between each cake. Press the batter flat (ish) and heat until browned on one side. Flip and brown on the other side. Keep warm in a low oven, while cooking the rest of the batter into cakes.

To make the sauce, whisk all the ingredients together. Serve the cakes warm with the sauce.

These were a big hit with my family, my husband named them yam pancakes.