Sweet potato mash with lemon and spice flavors

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 800 g sweet potato(s), fresh
• 1 tsp salt, for the cooking water
• 1 star anise, whole
• 1 tsp fenugreek, whole
• 1 piece(s) fresh ginger, about the size of a hazelnut, roughly diced
• 1 lemon(s), the juice
• 1 pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1 pinch of sea salt
• 100 g butter
• ½ bunch parsley, flat, medium-finely chopped
• e.g. nutmeg or tonka bean, freshly grated

Instructions

Working time approx. 10 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 20 minutes; Total time approx. 30 minutes

aromatic side dish for example with poultry, meat or fish

First, peel and roughly dice the sweet potatoes and place them in lightly salted water. Add the star anise, fenugreek seeds, and ginger to the boiling water right from the start, using a tea infuser or a tied disposable tea strainer. This will make it easier to remove the spices later. Bring to a boil briefly, reduce the heat to 1/3, and simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Check occasionally to make sure the sweet potatoes don’t become too soft. They should have the same firmness as regular boiled potatoes. Remove the herbs, drain the sweet potatoes, and return them to the pot. Now add the butter and squeezed lemon juice and mash everything with a masher. Depending on how chunky or fine you like your mash, you may need to mash briefly or for a longer and more intense time. I personally like it quite chunky. Now fold in the parsley, a pinch of salt, and the cayenne pepper. Many people only use the parsley leaves. I also use the stalks, which I cut into fine rings and fold in. I just trim off the bottom part of the stalks, which they have been standing in the water to keep them fresh. The stalks give everything a bit more crunch. After arranging it on the plate, I always grate a touch of nutmeg over the mash. Someone recently gave me a tonka bean, which has a wonderful vanilla-cinnamon aroma. I tried it too: It also tastes tremendous and smells fantastic. But use the tonka bean very sparingly if you want to try it. The mash is a great accompaniment to fried or grilled fish, meat, or poultry.