Sweet Potato Fritters with Soured Cream

Ingredients

• 600 g sweet potato, peeled, grated
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 60 g plain flour
• 3 spring onions, sliced
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 150 ml sour cream
• Crusty bread, to serve
• Rocket and seed salad, to serve
• Fresh parsley, to serve

Method

1. Pile the grated sweet potato into the centre of a clean tea towel, gather up the corners and wring out hard over the sink. You want it as dry as you can get it — water means steam, and steam means soggy middles instead of crisp edges.
2. Tip the squeezed sweet potato into a bowl with the beaten eggs, flour, spring onions and cumin. Season generously with salt and pepper and mix until evenly combined — the mixture should hold loosely together when you press it.
3. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat until it shimmers. Add a pinch of the mixture as a tester — it should sizzle on contact. The cumin will bloom in the hot oil as the fritters cook, turning fragrant and nutty within the first minute; raw ground cumin tastes dusty, bloomed cumin tastes of itself.
4. Drop in heaped tablespoons of the mixture, flattening each one lightly with the back of the spoon to about 1cm thick. Work in batches and don't crowd the pan — too many at once and the temperature drops, the fritters steam, and you lose the lacy edges.
5. Fry for 3–4 minutes per side until deep golden and cooked through, the edges crisp and the middles tender to a fork. Keep the cooked fritters warm in a low oven on a wire rack — not a plate, or the bottoms go soft.
6. Taste one before you plate up. Adjust the salt on the next batch if needed — season now, not at the table.
7. Pile the fritters onto plates with a generous spoonful of soured cream alongside, scatter the chopped herbs over the top, and finish with a squeeze of lemon — the acid lifts the sweetness of the potato and cuts the cool cream.