Easy African Sweet Potato Patties

I had major problems with these. First of all, if this is the "Easy" version, I really don't want to know what the hard version is like. If I followed your directions exactly I would be cleaning up 2 frying pans, a wok, a pot with steamer insert, my mortar and pestle, one massive bowl and a couple of little bowls. That's a lot of dishes! I decided to follow the advice of previous preparers, and decided to bake them potatoes and sweet potatoes. I didn't have any trouble with the spices, until it was time to grind them. I don't have a coffee grinder devoted to spices, and I don't want my coffee tasting like cumin, so I used my mortar and pestle. Have you ever ground cinnamon by hand? Not easy. I took out the cinnamon stick and put in a 1/2 t. of ground cinnamon. The veggies sauteed fine, I just used the same frying pan I used to toast the spices. Then it was time to bring everything together, no problem. When I tried to make patties and cook them, BIG problems. There's no indication of heat level for the stovetop, so I had to guess at medium. And my mixture totally fell apart. I ended up burning myself trying to turn the things. I kept rereading the recipe trying to see if I left out some kind of thickening that would turn this soup into patties. Nope. I had the egg, what this needed was a good handful of flour. And maybe baking them The ones that did get cooked, did not taste as though they were worth the trouble for us. I am very sorry to post this review, but it really didn't work for us at all. Made for ZWT4.

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Used yams, & steamed them, for this recipe & had a very easy time making the patties! I didn't, however, peel the yams, but after they were steamed, I chopped them up fairly small so the pieces of peel weren't very large & proceeded from there! VERY TASTY PATTIES, & well-worth making again! [Made & reviewed while on tour in Africa with Zaar's World Tour 4]

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I took the previous reviewer's suggestion and baked the potatoes instead of boiling. My patties held together very well. Nice flavor. Made for Tastebud Tickling Travellers during ZWT 4

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I made this recipe a few months ago after finding the World Cafe book in the library. I had some trouble keeping the patties together - I think part of the problem was the amount of water left in the potatoes after boiling them. I would suggest cooking the potatoes with a dryer method (perhaps by baking or steaming them). If you boil them, make sure that they are very well drianed before you fry them. Even though this didn't result in patties for me, it was still delicious, and I would definitely recommend it! It was excellent served with West African piri piri sauce (the recipe for which I also found in the World Cafe book).

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