Yampee

Yampee.  Yampee.  I like having you in my life now.  Welcome to the land of being broiled, and who knows what else.    All because of a visit to a Korean supermarket, looking for a food adventure.  I walked out with you, a South American species within the yam family, although I didn’t know it at the time.  After all, you looked pretty strange, with wrinkled, hard skin, and dipped in wax at the base and top.  You almost looked like a dried gourd/fruit.  You looked woody.

The yampee, scientific name Dioscorea trifida.

Learning you were a close relative of the sweet potato, and were supposedly excellent being broiled, though, I took a chance on you.

I will say that I started to regret that chance when I cut you up, and a white slime started forming. (The first picture has trails of slime connecting the squares, if one looks closely)   But, you are excellent broiled in olive oil, sea salt and pepper.  Not as sweet as sweet potato, but milder, with a nice subtle, other flavor that I just can’t put my finger on.  You were great roasted, and then fried, kind of like french fries.

Unfortunately, I have the feeling you cost way more than either type of potato; I didn’t keep the receipt.   (You do take 11 months to grow, according to Wikipedia.) But you will now be a part of my life (occasionally); I will find different recipes to help keep us together.

(I get silly on Sunday afternoons during nap time.)