Sweet Potato Hash

At a recent dinner out, I was served a very delicious dish that included a "sweet potato hash," and I thought I'd try my hand with my own version.  You can use yams or sweet potatoes in this recipe, and we'll look at the differences below.

Ingredients

• 1 Large organic sweet potato (or yam), about two pounds, diced
• 1 Tblsp coconut oil
• 2 Tblsp chopped fresh organic parsley
• 1/4 Tsp ground ginger
• 1 Tblsp butter (from pastured cows)
• 1/2 to 1 cup organic asparagus
• Sea salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

Heat a cast iron or stainless steel frying pan over a medium heat.  Before it starts to smoke, add the coconut oil to melt.  When it's hot enough to sizzle one of those sweet potato cubes, add the sweet potatoes (or yams), and parsley.  Saute about ten minutes, then add the butter, asparagus and ginger.  Saute another five minutes or until sweet potatoes are easy to pierce with a fork.  Remove from heat and serve.  (This recipe will serve two to four people depending on how hungry they are and how much other food you serve.)

Additional note:  If I wasn't accommodating my dear husband, I would also chop up about a half an onion and add it at the beginning with the sweet potatoes (yams).  The restaurant version had onion and was delicious.  

Now, lets talk about the difference between yams and sweet potatoes.  

Sweet Potatoes:  Rich in vitamin A, providing about 769% of your RDA (recommended daily allowance).  Allowance?  Who came up with that term?  It almost sounds like you're allowed so much and no more -- people all over the world are eating foods with no vitamin A, and you're eating 769% of your allowance?!  How about we call it RDV, instead ...recommended daily value.   So, in addition to vitamin A, you're getting about 69% of your RDV of vitamin C and 29% of your vitamin B6.  For minerals, you're getting 50% of your manganese and 30% of your potassium.  Not bad for a one cup serving of vegetables.

Yams:  Less of a nutritional punch, but not too bad.  Yams give you only 6% of your vitamin A, 27% of your vitamin C, and 16% of your vitamin B6 in a one cup serving.  For minerals, you're getting 30% of potassium and 25% of your RDV of manganese.

Overall, sweet potatoes win the nutritional match, also providing significantly more magnesium, phosphorus, and copper.  However, a big part of eating is the taste, and your taste preference may trump the vitamins.  Either way you win because you're eating minimally processed whole foods designed to nourish.

(The picture shown above shows the recipe using yams.)