I realize that food photography is an important factor in people wanting to try a new recipe or dish. I’ve always eschewed a restaurant that has photos of their food on their menu (though this is far less troublesome overseas) but when you think about it, isn’t it the photo of the dish that entices you to try a new recipe? So I’d like to issue an apology for this one.

For country #49, I chose to make Sweet Potato Simboro, a dish native to Vanuatu, a tiny island off the cost of Australia. I had a bunch of sweet potatoes from my weekly CSA and this seemed like something different to make: my first soup as part of this project! I cut the quantity down significantly so we just had enough for the two of us for dinner. The main reason besides not wanting 10-12 services of soup in my fridge? Grating sweet potato is very hard work and after a solid 20 minutes, I was ready to be done. This sweet potato soup involves creating little pockets of grated sweet potato in “island cabbage” or for my purposes, I used kale but spinach or rainbow chard could also work. You then simmer in coconut milk. Pretty simple, right? And it was if you can use a food processor with a grating attachment. But I did this the old fashioned way and paid for it in a small amount of soup. 🙂

Recipe source: http://globaltableadventure.com/recipe/recipe-simboro/

Overall Level of Effort: 3

Skill Level: Beginner

Would Make It Again? No

Additional Notes: I think this needed a little spice or maybe even a protein like a salmon to turn this into more of a chowder.