Roasted Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad
We have assigned the days of the weeks various characters. Monday is the dark one. It usually hails the start of routine, school and work. To counter Monday’s dark mood, I have created this bright and vibrant salad. The flavors are sweet, tangy and tantalizing. If you make this with colored sweet potatoes it is a visual delight.
The Story of Roasted Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad
The quiet one is Tuesday. It finds its place quietly after Monday. Wednesday helps us move far enough from Monday to holds its own. Thursdays is the active one. Friday the laid back one and the weekends are the reflective and bright days. This chickpea and sweet potato salad is nutritious and relatively light. The kind to enjoy from summer to fall. The bright gentle sweetness of the sweet potato works brilliantly with the tangy lime. This is a riff of a simple sweet potato chaat. Roasting the sweet potatoes is a genius variation as it concentrates the flavors well.
I have never tasted a sweet potato chaat. My husband and sister-in-law have described in detail. This recipe is created off someone else’s nostalgia, off the streets of Indian railroad platforms and Old Delhi, streets that come alive in my imagination and certainly in my kitchen.
What is a Chaat
A chaat is a group of spicy and tangy salads from Northen India. They range from simple varieties like this recipe and a Corn Chaat that I share here. There are complicated variations that include papri and a variety of sweet and spicy chutneys. There are chaats from other parts of India, such as this chotpoti that I share here.
How is this different?
As with everything in life, I have added my embellishments, the biggest change here is to lightly roast the sweet potatoes rather than to fry them. I like the fact, that this allows the sweetness of the sweet potatoes to mellow into a nice dense perfection but avoids the oil and darkness of color that deep frying does to these recipes. While I like to serve the salad right away, it can actually be made ahead and kept for a day and served later, in fact this allows the flavors to deepen.
An Indian chaat made with roasted Sweet potatoes and chickpeas and assorted chaat seasonings.
Ingredients
- 1 white Japanese sweet potato
- 1 cup cooked chickpeas
- 1 red onion, finely chopped
- 1 green chili minced
- ¼ cup chopped cilantro
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ¼ cup lime juice (about 1 large lime)
- 2 teaspoon chaat masala
- 2 teaspoons oil (preferably mustard oil
- 1 teaspoon nigella seeds
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 teaspoon freshly minced ginger
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Wrap the sweet potatoes in foil, place in the oven and bake for 1 hour, to ensure that the potatoes are cooked through.
- Allow the sweet potatoes to cool enough to handle. Peel the sweet potatoes, and cut into cubes.
- Place the potatoes in a large mixing bowl, add in the chickpeas, the chopped onions, green chili and the chopped cilantro.
- In a small mixing bowl add in the olive oil, the lime juice and the chaat masala and mix well. Drizzle this dressing over the sweet potatoes and mix well.
- In a small skillet heat the oil and add the nigella seeds and allow it to sizzle. Add in the garlic and the ginger and let the mixture turn fragrant. Pour this over the sweet potato mixture.
Notes
The cooking time for this recipe is mostly unattended
Twenty Five Bengali Recipes for A Virtual Feast - Spice Chronicles
[…] 13. Alu Kabli – Literally translated this is potato and chickpeas, it is really a spicy potato salad done Bengali style style, here is a classic version and then there is my sweet potato variation. […]