This luscious dish is the perfect balance of warmly spiced, creamy mashed sweet potatoes and toasty, sweet, nutty dukkah. The sweet potatoes are deliciously rich and lend such a beautiful and earthy flavor to the dish, while simultaneously brightening the table with their sunny color. The dukkah topping, however, is the star of the show.
Egyptian in origin, dukkahs are mixtures of nuts, seeds, and spices, and they can be made to be either savory or sweet. While either would work beautifully atop sweet potatoes, I opted for a sweet version on this occasion. Maybe I’ll make a sister recipe for a savory one later on! This sweet dukkah is so delicious that I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve been known to eat pinches of it on its own. For this reason, I always make a bigger batch than is necessary for the recipe at hand so I can use it on salads, to rim cocktails, as a bread or pita dip on its own or on top of a wetter dip, on desserts (like ice cream!), or as relatively all-purpose garnish.
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Preheat the oven to 350°F. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Sprinkle the cumin seeds onto a dry baking tray. Once the oven is at temperature, put the tray into the oven and bake for 5-7 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool (about 10 minutes).
Sprinkle the pistachios, sesame seeds, coriander seeds, and walnuts onto a dry baking tray.
Once the oven is at temperature, put the tray into the oven and bake for 5-7 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool (about 10 minutes).
Transfer the toasted nuts and seeds to a food processor along with the brown sugar, thyme, cinnamon, and ground pepper. Pulse until the dukkah has reached your desired consistency (I like it to be somewhat finer, but it’s quite nice with bigger chunks as well). Transfer the dukkah mixture to a bowl and add the maldon salt and toss to combine.
In a medium to large saucepan, cover the sweet potato chunks with cold water. Season the water (I use about a handful of kosher salt), and bring to a boil.
Cook until tender enough to pierce easily with the tip of a knife (about 15-20 minutes). When they’re done cooking, the sweet potato will fall easily off the knife.
Drain the sweet potatoes, then mash them. Add the cream, butter, and ground cumin and stir to combine. Add salt to taste (taste before adding salt, because it may not need any since the potatoes were seasoned in the water).
Transfer to a serving plate or bowl and garnish liberally with dukkah, concentrating the majority of the dukkah to the center so that you can see the beautiful color of the mashed sweet potato on the edges of the plate.
Mashed Sweet Potato with Dukkah
Ingredients
- 2-3 sweet potatoes (aka yams), peeled and cut into uniform chunks (this way they will cook evenly)
- 1 Tbsp cream (can be substituted with an equal amount of coconut cream)
- 2 Tbsp butter or Earth Balance
- 1 tsp whole cumin seeds
- 1½ Tbsp brown sugar
- 1½ tsp kosher salt, plus more to season the boiling water
- 1 pinch Maldon salt
- 1 Tbsp pistachios
- ¼ tsp coriander seeds
- 4 tsp sesame seeds
- 2 Tbsp walnuts
- 1 pinch freshly ground black pepper
- ½ tsp dried thyme
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Sprinkle the cumin seeds onto a dry baking tray. Once the oven is at temperature, put the tray into the oven and bake for 5-7 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool (about 10 minutes). Once cooled, grind the seeds into a fine powder. Alternatively, you can achieve the same result by toasting your seeds on a dry skillet on medium-high heat for about the same amount of time.
- Sprinkle the pistachios, sesame seeds, coriander seeds, and walnuts onto a dry baking tray. Once the oven is at temperature, put the tray into the oven and bake for 5-7 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool (about 10 minutes).
- Transfer the toasted nuts and seeds to a food processor along with the brown sugar, thyme, cinnamon, and ground pepper. Pulse until the dukkah has reached your desired consistency (I like it to be somewhat finer, but it's quite nice with bigger chunks as well).
- Transfer the dukkah mixture to a bowl and add the maldon salt and toss to combine.
- In a medium to large saucepan, cover the sweet potato chunks with cold water. Season the water (I use about a handful of kosher salt), and bring to a boil.
- Cook until tender enough to pierce easily with the tip of a knife (about 15-20 minutes). When they're done cooking, the sweet potato will fall easily off the knife.
- Drain the sweet potatoes, then mash them. Add the cream, butter, and ground cumin and stir to combine. Add salt to taste (taste before adding salt, because it may not need any since the potatoes were seasoned in the water).
- Transfer to a serving plate or bowl and garnish liberally with dukkah, concentrating the majority of the dukkah to the center so that you can see the beautiful color of the mashed sweet potato on the edges of the plate.