The Jolly Fox
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Okinawa Sweet Potato Pie.
A while back, I was browsing one of my favorite food blogs, Eat the Love. While the blog isn’t vegan, it does have a couple of vegan recipes and Irvin’s creations are some of my favorite things to veganize. Whilst aforementioned browsing, I happened upon an interesting recipe for sweet potato pie. Irvin had primarily used an interesting variety of sweet potato that I had never seen or heard of; the Okinawa sweet potato.
So, this sweet potato is in the same family as the other types found at the farmer’s market or grocery store, including those that are always labeled as “yams”. Yes, most of you already know, but some of you may not….a yam is not a yam at all, it’s a sweet potato. They all have the same basic shape and come in different colors, for whatever suits your fancy and nutritional needs. But, what I found especially fancy and amazing about this particular variety of sweet potato is that, are you ready for this? They are bright PURPLE on the inside. Yes! Unassuming beige colored outsides and velvety purple sweet potato insides. Ahh, purple vegetables please me to no end.
So, basically I had to make this pie that Irvin posted. It was an American Orange Yam Sweet Potato & Okinawa Sweet Potato Pie w/ Macadamia Nut Topping. I was headed to Woori Market located in the Little Tokyo area of downtown to pick up some sweet rice flour, coincidentally for another recipe of Irvin’s I am planning to make vegan. I searched around and found my flour for an amazing price. Then I wandered the produce area for a bit and ran into a bin of these amazing potatoes. I hadn’t planned on making this pie that day, but I knew that since I had run into this bin full of potatoes that I knew were purple on the inside, well, something just had to be done. After picking up my goodies I was super happy. I only got two bags of flour and a few sweet potatoes, but I felt so satisfied and excited. I went home and immediately began prepping the pie crust. I have linked to Irvin’s blog above where you can find the original recipe. Here are my vegan notes:
Vegan Notes for American Orange & Okinawa Sweet Potato Pie:
1. Regarding the crust: Pastry crust is typically easy to veganize. Just replace the fat. I used Earth Balance for this recipe and my dough was VERY soft, even after 2 hours of refrigeration. It was still workable for me and I used it. It baked up perfectly well and tasted great, but I think any one of these options will be easier to work with: combination of solid coconut oil and cold Earth Balance, combination of cold shortening and Earth Balance, cold Earth Balance Coconut Spread, or just plain coconut oil or shortening on their own.
2. For the filling: Replace full fat yogurt with equal parts So Delicious Coconut Milk yogurt. I used vanilla.
Replace 3 larges egg yolks with 1 tbsp + 1/2 tsp Ener-G egg replacer. Do NOT whip with water. Add it to your filling dry.
Replace 1 large egg with 1 flax egg: 1 tbsp ground flax whipped with 1 tbsp water
Replace honey with agave nectar, barley malt syrup, brown rice syrup or a bit of maple syrup. ***I eat honey and have been fortunate enough to have taken home some macadamia nut blossom honey from Hawaii from ethical bee keepers on Maui, so I did use my macadamia blossom honey where it is called for in the recipe. I also brought home macadamia nuts, red salt and lots of other fabulous Hawaiian goodies. I think we should all go to Hawaii right now.
With the notes above, prepare the rest of the pie according to Irvin’s instructions, just swapping out the above ingredients and you will have a gorgeous and unforgettable sweet potato pie with a touch of Maui. 🙂
The Jolly Fox 