Yam cakes are a common dish in Southeast Asia and Native American cuisine, made with yams as the main ingredient. In Southeast Asia, they are usually savory and steamed with meat and seafood, while in Native American cooking, they are fried or baked with flour, eggs, and sugar. The term “yam” can be confusing, as it is often used incorrectly to identify sweet potatoes or taro.
There are different versions of yam cakes around the world, some sweet and some savory. The common element in the pies is the use of yam as the basis for the whole recipe. In Southeast Asia, the cakes are usually steamed and have a savory taste, including prawns, sausages and other minced meats in the mixture. In Native American cooking, yam pies may be loose bundles of yam that are fried or baked. There are some recipes for dessert-style yam cakes, although they are not as common, in part because yams could become very hard and dense when used in structures such as tall cakes.
The main ingredient in yam pies is yam, although what is a yam can be confusing. In some Southeast Asian countries, a type of corm known as taro is sometimes called a yam. In North America, the term “yam” is often used incorrectly to identify a sweet potato. While both a sweet potato and taro look somewhat like yams, they are not actual yams. Taro tastes closer to a potato than a sweet potato although, with the prevalence of sweet potatoes in Asia, many recipes use real sweet potatoes.
In Southeast Asian cuisine, yam cakes are savory snacks, appetizers, or accompaniments to soups or other main dishes. Sweet potatoes are very tough when raw, and making sweet potato pies involves steaming, boiling, or soaking the sweet potatoes until tender. They are then mashed together with rice flour and sometimes tapioca flour along with hot water to form a batter.
Other ingredients may be added to the batter, including garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes, mushrooms, five-spice powder, onions, or shallots. All of these ingredients are usually cooked ahead of time to develop flavors and textures. Meats and seafood are usually added to yam cakes, including Chinese sausage, ground or diced pork, or shrimp. Meat additions are usually minced very fine or are crushed into a powder from dried forms and cooked before being added to the batter. The whole batter is poured into a pan and steamed until solid, after which the top can be decorated with nuts, spices or vegetable shavings.
In Native American cooking, yam pies begin by grating shredded yams and then mixing them with flour, eggs, and sugar. The mixture can then be quickly fried in oil to form crispy cakes. Another version, which has been adapted to make a yam-flavored dessert pie, involved the same ingredients, except the potatoes are mashed with the other ingredients and then combined with milk and baked until they form pies similar to cookies.
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