This sweet potato stew with kale and lentils is a perfect winter weeknight meal. It's a great balance of textures - soft cubed sweet potato, 'chew' from kale and lentils and a toasted seed topping. The stew is warm and fragrant, zingy with ginger and lime juice with a good hit of chilli spice. It's a sensory delight, greater than the sum of its parts.
Sweet potato stew with kale and lentils ticks lots of dietary boxes, but that doesn't do it justice. Yes; it happens to be vegan and gluten-free. It is also delicious comfort food, quick to pull together and cooks in one pot. What's not to love?
Unlike many other sweet potato stews out there, this has NO coconut cream or milk. It doesn't need it. The sweet potato becomes beautifully soft and creamy and breaks down slightly. This results in a lighter, more-ish stew that happens to be highly nutritious too.
🥘 Ingredients
Sweet Potatoes - soft and sweet. These are so good for you and a great carrier of flavour. These provide the main bulk of the stew.
Kale - any 'robust' leafy green will work well here to add a element of 'chew' to the dish. Think silverbeet or swiss chard, rather than spinach. It's silly, but I'm still always surprised how it looks like an astonishing volume when prepped. It collapses and wilts into the stew in the last few minutes before serving.
Canned Lentils - a pantry staple in my house. They're so convenient - cooked perfectly and ready to use. Dried lentils can be a faff to prepare. They often need a long cook time and frequent tending to, to add more water and test for doneness. I prefer to use a brand of canned lentils with no added salt, so that we can control the salt ourselves. Even though the lentils in the can are already cooked, they can still take on great flavour.
Garam Masala - an Indian blend of aromatic spices. Garam means 'hot', masala means 'spices'. It's not particularly hot though. Garam masala usually contains a combo of cumin, coriander, cardamon, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. It provides a wonderful complex flavour and low hum of heat to this recipe. It's readily available in supermarkets.
Ginger - a very important part of the flavour profile of this stew. It goes so well with aromatics. It's sweet and warm and complements this hearty warming bowl of stew.
Jalapeno - a little goes a long way. I like to add some fine gratings for a bit of 'fresh' heat. You can adjust the amount of this to control the heat to your taste.
Toasted Seeds - freshly toasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds are worth the little extra effort. They get wonderfully crisp and tasty. These seeds add textural contrast to the soft and melding sweet potato. We sprinkle them on top as a garnish.
Limes - ...and sweet potatoes; a match made in heaven. Limes and ginger = ditto. Add a touch of fresh zing by spritzing some freshly-squeezed lime over each bowl of stew.
🔪 Instructions
This stew comes together in around 45 minutes. While the sweet potato is cooking, you can strip the kale stems, finely shred the leaves and toast the seeds.
We peel and chop the sweet potatoes into small dice.
Photo 1 - We stir the potato into a olive oil flavoured with garam masala, jalapeno and ginger.
Photo 2 - we add stock and a bay leaf so that the sweet potato can absorb the flavours as it softens.
Meanwhile, we toast sunflower and pumpkin seeds until golden and blistered. Photos 1 and 2 show the before and after shots. This adds wonderful texture and flavour and when used as a garnish over the bowls of stew.
When the sweet potato is tender, the stew is almost finished. We add finely shredded kale, drained canned lentils and seasoning. We cover the pot to allow the trapped steam to wilt and soften the kale. This only takes 5-10 minutes.
Tired of spending a fortune on ginger and chillies for them to go soft and wrinkly in the fridge? How can you make them last *forever AND make prepping them a breeze?
A revelation for me has been freezing chillies and fresh ginger as soon as I return home from buying them. When you need to use them, simply finely grate straight from frozen using a microplane. Don't defrost first. If you're like me, you love the flavour of chilli and ginger in your cooking, but you don't love chunks of them in your meals. It's very hard to prepare them small enough using a knife. And of course this takes time. Don’t be alarmed by how much ginger and chilli it looks like when you prepare using a microplane (zester)! There's so much air in that pile of shavings that it looks far more than it actually is.
We all know kale's a super-food and a delicous one at that. We also know it's incredibly fibrous with tough stems. How do we easily prep it?
Easy. Keep the stems in their clumps - no need to pull them apart and separate. Lighly grip the leaves around one stem near the base, as if you're about to pincer-grip something small. Move your fingers towards the tip. You should end up with the leaves in your hand and a bare stalk left behind. Repeat until you have a bunch of bare stems. If any of the leaves still have thick veins within them, lay them down on a chopping board and flatten them out. Use a sharp knife to cut either side of the vein to remove and discard.
Seeds are good, but (freshly) toasted seeds are even better! How do we do this?
This is best done in the oven. Lay them out in a thin layer over a baking tray or two. Dry roast for around 8 minutes (keep a close eye) in a 200 °C oven until starting to colour and blister slightly. If you've got no other reason to put the oven on, you can do this step on the stovetop in a pre-heated frying pan/skillet. You’ll need to remember to move around often to get even colour. These seeds are so handy to have around. They'll keep crisp for a few days. Store them in a glass screw-top jar. They're great for sprinkling on cereal and salads (or eating by the handful as a snack). It's worth making some extra next time you've got the oven on.
📖 Recipe
Equipment
- Large lidded pot (big enough to take all the ingredients including unwilted kale leaves)
Ingredients
- 1 kg sweet potatoes
- big piece fresh ginger about 15g (note)
- ⅓ jalapeno pepper (note)
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 ½ teaspoons garam masala
- 1 litre vegetable stock (note)
- 100 g sunflower seeds
- 100 g pumpkin seeds
- 1 bay leaf
- 250 g Kale/Swiss chard/silverbeet leaves
- 850 g canned lentils (no salt added) (2 cans. The drained weight will be about 400g)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- lots of freshly ground black pepper
- 1-2 limes
Instructions
- Preheat Oven - to 200°C. Or, skip this step if you already have toasted seeds or want to toast the seeds on the stove-top instead (note). Continue with the recipe while you're waiting for the oven to preheat.
- Prep Sweet Potatoes - peel and chop into small cubes, about 1cm.1 kg sweet potatoes
- Ginger & Jalapeno - finely grate or chop.big piece fresh ginger⅓ jalapeno pepper
- Heat Aromatics - in a very large saucepan, heat the oil. Add the ginger, jalapeno and garam masala. Heat for about a minute, stirring often, until fragrant.2 Tablespoons olive oil1 ½ teaspoons garam masala
- Cook Sweet Potatoes - stir in the sweet potatoes and stir well to coat in the spice mix. Add the stock and bay leaf. Bring to a simmer, partially cover, and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the sweet potato is tender.1 litre vegetable stock1 bay leaf
- Toast Seeds - place the seeds in a thin layer on a baking sheet or two (no oil needed). Place in the oven for 6-8 minutes unitl browned and starting to blister. Move them around half way through and keep a close eye on them so that they don't burn. OR, place the seeds in a large pre-heated dry frying pan on the stovetop and toast until browned and starting to pop. Stir often. Either method, transfer the seeds in a thin layer to a plate to cool before transferring to a glass jar.100 g sunflower seeds100 g pumpkin seeds
- Prep Kale & Lentils -very finely shred the kale leaves and transfer to a large bowl. Tip the lentils into a sieve set over the sink and rinse until the water runs clear. Add to the lentils.250 g Kale/Swiss chard/silverbeet leaves850 g canned lentils (no salt added)
- Add Kale, Lentils & Seasoning - to the stew. Cover and simmer for another 5-10 minutes, until the kale wilts.2 teaspoons saltlots of freshly ground black pepper
- Serve - spritz a little freshly squeezed lime juice over the top of each bowlful. Garnish with a generous sprinkle of seeds.1-2 limes
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