Sweet Potato Dessert Soup with Sweet Potato Balls

Mother in law gave me some small purple sweet potatoes recently. I like making potato dishes but I am not a fan of sweet potato. People usually steam it or bake it simply. However, I need to drink plenty of water otherwise I couldn’t swallow it easily. So I would try to recreate it into foods I like. I used to make small mini sweet potato pancakes and I still have some taro and sweet potato balls in the freezer. Thought they have the same pretty velvet colour, I planned to make a sweet soup classic – Sweet Potato Sweet Soup. Usually I would make this sweet soup when it is colder and eat it warm. But it’s still quite hot these days so I will freeze it or put some ice cubes when serving.

Serve 3-4

Ingredients –
Purple sweet potatoes 500g
A chunk of finger size ginger
Water 6 cups
Raw slab sugar 40g, if you don’t have this sugar, then regular sugar is good enough
Taro or sweet potato balls, as many as you like (optional)

How to do –
1. Sweet potatoes, washed, peeled, and cut into big bite size;
2. Sweet potato chunks, water and ginger in pot, bring to boil and simmer in medium heat. It may only take 10 minutes. But I like them to be a little mashed, so I would usually simmer for about half an hour;
3. Prepare the taro and sweet potato balls. Poach them till they float, drain and put them in icy water so as to retain the chewiness;
4. Have a taste of the sweet soup to see how much sugar you should add in, sweet potato has mild natural sweetness. I use about 40g raw slab sugar this time. Don’t add sugar too early otherwise the sweet soup would turn a little sour. Boiling sugar for a long time would produce acidity. I would add sugar before turning off the heat, lid on and let it melt.

Decorate with the taro and sweet potato balls when serving. This sweet soup, as most of the Cantonese sweet soups, can be served hot or cold.