Imo Youkan

No brain. Must figure out where it went. >.>

Managed to get hold of some (proper) sweet potatoes after a trip to the Asian market the other week and made sweet potato youkan with them. :P It's... interesting? ^^; (Not in a bad way or anything, it's a little different from what I was expecting.)

The recipe.

My agar-agar comes in 4g packets which is ~2 tsp. The first time I made this, I followed the recipe as written for the most part. Note: I cross-checked with the J version of the recipe because certain aspects weren't entirely clear to me from the E version.

Clarifications:

2: Drop the potatoes into a bowl of water as you're peeling. Once done, pat them dry...

3: (Yes it does say to crush with a whisk. I used a fork. A masher will of course work as well. If you have a ricer, that would probably be best and you could probably skip the next part if you want this thing to be smooth. :P ) Press the mashed sweet potato through a sieve for a finer consistency.

4: A small pot should be fine.

Both times, I skipped cooling the pot in cold water and just poured the hot youkan into (4) ramekins.

The second time I did this, I baked the sweet potato rather than nuking them. By doing so, the sweet potato flavour was more pronounced in the final product (which I prefer). Also, the second time I made this, I also used a bit more potato (~50g or so more), so I added a bit more sugar and water to compensate. I found the recipe as written to be a touch low on water originally and added more the first time as well.

Tomorrow's dessert: apple youkan (E version) :P