One of my favourite seasonal flavours, and probably the first dish Dad ever showed me how to make. It is sweet with a ginger tingle, served hot or cold, eaten in a bowl, or sipped from a mug.
Preparation is simple. Ingredient quantities are flexible to your taste. This version uses yam because I like the colour and softer flavour. Try doubling the ginger to blast a lingering cold out of your chest.
A special super easy single-serving cheat variation is included way at the bottom.
Original post on Facebook
Sweet Potato in Ginger Soup
125 ml or 1/2 cup fresh ginger
200 ml or 3/4 cup cane sugar
500 ml or 2 cups diced yams
2 litres or 8 cups water
1 tsp tapioca powder (optional)
pinch of salt
- Peel and slice (or sliver) ginger. Get your ginger as clean as you can. You want your soup to be crystal clear. Pro tip: ginger discs are easier to separate out later.
- Gently simmer ginger and half the cane sugar in water for about fifteen minutes. Add remaining cane sugar to taste. The water should never come to a full boil, as that will make your soup cloudy.
- Peel and dice yams. Small cubes around 7 or 8 mm are common. Really big jello-sized cubes are popular, too, and I have even seen yam discs the size of chocolate coins.
- Add diced yams to your soup, and continue to gently simmer just below a boil until the yams are tender, probably thirty minutes to an hour depending how chunky you like your yams. The yams will naturally thicken the broth slightly, but I like to add the tapioca for a nicer body.
- Add a teensy bit of salt at the end when you are letting your soup cool. The almost indiscernible amount of salt will soften and round out the flavour.
Serve hot or cold. Colder soup will be a bit thicker, and will benefit from a bit more sugar.
BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS FOREVER
Extra Tidbits
- Rock cane sugar has the best flavour, with a warm, almost licorice undertone. It can be inconvenient to measure properly (use the water displacement method) and takes forever to dissolve. Compressed cane sugar bars or granulated cane sugar is just fine, though purists may disagree.
- Some separate out the ginger before serving, some leave it in. Leaving it in (especially overnight) brings out a spicier flavour and grassy hints.
- An immersion blender can give you a nice thick creamy soup, if you want to go that way.
- White sugar and/or powdered ginger are sufficiently poor substitutes that if you are considering either of those options, you may as well also substitute pee for your water. Yes, I said it. Merry New Year ?
Hope you enjoy this!
SUPER SPECIAL QUICK ‘N’ DIRTY
Single-Serve Cheat Version
Bake one 5 mm (3/8″) slice of unseasoned yam in toaster oven (or microwave if you are a heathen). Put two thin discs of fresh ginger and 3 teaspoons of cane sugar in a big mug and fill 3/4 with boiling water. Dice baked yam and toss into your mug of cane sugar and ginger.
Yum! ?