Tonight’s ingredient is: Costa Rican yam!

I picked this guy up at the Asian market. I couldn’t resist him since he was apparently from Costa Rica, which is a lovely place. I don’t remember eating any yams when I was there, and I couldn’t really find much info online about them. So I decided to do the easiest thing to do with any sort of potato/yam type thing- make fried cakes.

The skin of the yam was pretty thick and rough- almost like bark. I didn’t even attempt to use my vegetable peeler- just went straight for the knife. The flesh inside was whitish and sort of starchy/slimy. I grated it up in the food processor along with an onion, then mixed in some peppers, scallions, salt, pepper, and hungarian hot paprika. The garlic was sauteed with some kale and collard greens (not pictured here since the photo came out blurry).

This wasn’t my favorite meal ever, and I probably won’t buy this particular kind of yam again. It was pretty flavorless and I didn’t really cook it enough so while it was nice and crispy on the outside it was still sort of crunchy/slimy on the inside. The flavor problem was made up for by all the onions and peppers though. I topped the cakes with the sauteed greens (which also had mustard seeds, crushed red pepper, and salt added), some of the leftover avjar from the other night, and some pineapple-jalapeno sauce I had in the fridge.