Okinawan sweet potato soup

[Liam Cognet]

Anyone know a recipe?

It's like this my wife works in a restaurant and her boss has put "Okinawan sweet potato soup" on the menu. It's just a recipe she made up. It has no connection to Okinawa and is not made with Okinawan sweet potatoes (Tumai Kuru or Beni Imo) which are purple on the inside.

Customers think they are getting Okinawan sweet potato soup when in reality they are actually getting mashed up supermarket variety sweet potato, and paying top dollar for it too.

I want to get my wife's boss to make the real deal.

So how about it, recipes anyone?

[shoshinkan]

had a look through the okinawan program (book) and didnt find a recepie im afraid, however for all things okinawan I would highly recomend the book (sold as the oinawna way in USA) - it does have loads of okinawan recipies,

great book,

[Blackwood]

The Okinawa Diet book, the follow on to the Program book, has two recipes. I don't have time to share now, but will try to type them in tonight.

page 233 Sweet Potato and Miso Soup
page 240 Sweet Potato and Split Pea Soup

[Blackwood]

I found this on a web site. It was listed as an Okinawan recipe and they said if you couldn't get the purple ones, the yellow ones worked just as well:

* 3 oz. or 6 Tbls of Butter
* 2 cloves of Garlic
* ½ - 1 tsp curry powder
* 3 lbs. of Sweet potatoes
* 1½ cup Water
* 2 tsp instant chicken stock
* 3 cups Milk
* 1/4 cup cream (optional)

Peel Sweet potatoes
Slice potatoes ½ inch thick
Add the crushed garlic and curry powder to butter in a large saucepan
Cook in butter 1-2 minutes (Sweat, don't brown!)
Add water
Cover, cook 10 minutes or until tender
Stir in Chicken stock
Puree whole lot (Use a stick blender if you have one)
Add cream and reheat (Stir and watch to avoid burning, do not boil)

[Liam Cognet]

Hey thanks a bunch Mark, I'll try to make some. I'll have to look into what sweet potatos are available here. I know I can get a kind that's purple on the outside and white on the inside.

In any case this'll show my wife's boss how to make real Okinawan sweet potato soup instead of making up a soup and calling it 'Okinawan'. She's a sill old broad she is.

Thanks again,

[bakaboy]

I had never heard of this type of soup and I have eaten lots of Okinawan food so I asked around. My teacher and girlfriend hadn't heard of this soup either. So I looked it up in a book by Toguchi Hatsumi called Ryukyu Ryori published in 1978.

That recipe that Mr. Blackwood posted didn't look too authentic to me. The dairy products and the curry powder are not in tradional Okinawan cooking. They would use lard instead of butter and while they have tumeric roots curry powder is a blend of many other spices that they didn't have until recently.

I found two soups. One for Tamu and one for satsuma imo. Sorry I didn't get the exact amounts but you should be able to figure it out.

Tamu Soup

Tamu stems
pork (any lean cut)
shima dofu
pork dashijiru (pork stock)
dashijiru (wich is usually kastuo/bonnito stock)
lard
miso
salt
tamu

Satsumaimo Soup

sanmai niku (thick bacon)
aoi yasai (I am not sure what this is called in English I just know it by site)
lard
miso
satsuma imo
dashijiru (again katsuo/bonnito stock)

Hope this helps. I am going to try them out this weekend.

James East

[Liam Cognet]

Bakaboy,

Those soups sound good but they don't have any sweet potato in them.

Also, what are 'tamu', 'shima dofu' and 'satsuma imo'?

I suppose being in Australia we will have to go non okinawan on some of the more obscure ingredients. Ie, I don't think we can get any purple potato.

Thanks tho.

=============================================

"Po-ta-tos! Boil 'em, mash 'em stick 'em in a stew!"
-Samwise

[bakaboy]

Tamu is the purple sweet potato. Satsuma imo is the yellow sweet potato. Shima dofu is the local tofu for Okinawa it is generally firmer and has a stronger flavour than the mainland Japanese tofu.

I am not sure of this connection but I think that Tamu is Taro in English. Taro, I have heard, is a staple for most of the islands in the Pacific.

I hope this makes it better for you. I should have been more careful with the Japanese/Hogen words.

James East

[Brian Owens]

...(sold as the oinawna way in USA)
Hey, I know we have a tendency to butcher the Queen's English sometimes, but not that badly! :p

[Brian Owens]

I've seen a recipe for sweet potato soup on an Okinawa Plan Web site, but the "Featured Recipe" changes regularly (right now it's for Nasi Goreng Ayam (Chicken Rice)

If interested, visit the site at:

http://okinawa-diet.com/recipes/recipe.html

HTH.

[Blackwood]

Yeah, I know, I haven't posted them yet. It may be another day or so.

[Liam Cognet]

Thanks for the translation, my Hogen is a bit rusty. These recipes are great.