Ivory Coast

We did dishes from two countries tonight, Ivory Coast and Nigeria. Ivory coast up first....

I've never had yams before, I've seen them tons of times outside ethic shops in the city centre but never got around to buying some and cooking them. That's definitely going to change. I officially love yams!

Kind of like potatoes but a bit stiffer, they are absolutely delicious. The dish called for them to be boiled, mashed, mixed with egg and butter and baked in the oven. It might seem a little bit onerous, but its totally worth the effort.


Baked Yams (taken from http://www.answers.com/topic/baked-yams)

Ingredients

1 large Yam, peeled, cut into med pieces and boiled until soft (about 25 mins)
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon of butter
splash milk
salt, to taste
1 egg yolk, beaten
nutmeg and cinnamon for dusting

Method

Mash the soft yam pieces in a mixing bowl.
Gradually add the beaten egg, butter, and salt, mixing well to make sure that all ingredients are blended.
Spoon the mashed yam into an oven-proof casserole dish and spread the top with the beaten egg yolk.
Place it in the oven at gasmark 6 for 15 minutes, or until golden brown.
Sprinkle the top with nutmeg and cinnamon.

Just to note, we found that mashing yams is not as easy as mashing potato. It required a bit more elbow grease and at first we thought we had done something wrong, but Derek persevered and they became much smoother after a couple of minutes mashing... so don't worry if the same thing happens to you, keep mashing and it will all come right.