SWEET POTATO BUBBLE & SQUEAK

‘And if your Bubble & Squeak wasn’t sopping in egg yolk, did you even have a Bubble & Squeak at all?’

I hate trying to make excuses for why my dinner only consisted of one thing. For instance, I hate being asked ‘is that all you had?’ and then am subject to a cruel Spanish inquisition of asking where the meat was or where was the potato or where were the vegetables or where was the sauce or where were the chips or where was the parade to celebrate it?

Sometimes something is just good as it is and all it requires is a fart-noise dollop of Heinz ketchup. Bubble & Squeak is that recipe to me.

As I am still in the wretched tidal wave of ‘making better choices’ (I’ve lost over a stone since Christmas so don’t cry too hard for me) I felt as though I wanted something that felt like comfort food but didn’t have half of the necessary and fabulous filth. Comfort food to me is usually something eaten with one piece of cutlery and is oozing some kind of carbohydrate bursting with butter. One evening I found myself really craving Bubble & Squeak and no quest for a smaller waist was going to stop me having it.

I used sweet potato instead of regular potato because I really wanted that soft, sweet squidgyness of it and the addition of kale gave the whole thing a bitter spike that I really wasn’t expecting to enjoy as much as I did. And the whole thing is shoved in an oven as opposed to fried so you still get that cuttable texture without the nerve of oil frying for a good time.

And if your Bubble & Squeak wasn’t sopping in egg yolk, did you even have a Bubble & Squeak at all?

Preheat the oven to 200C. Peel about 4/5 small sweet potatoes and cut into smaller chunks and throw into a pan of cold water. Add a little salt and then bring the water to a boil. Cook on a rolling boil for 5 minutes before throwing in two big handfuls of chopped kale and cook both together for another 4 minutes. You could use spinach here if the concept of kale escapes you. Drain them and put back into the pan.

Add a tbs of coconut oil to this mixture before grinding in some black pepper. Roughly chop two or three spring onions and throw into the mixture. Grab a masher of some description and mash the whole thing into a beautiful cloud of green flecked orange mush. Grab yourself either a baking dish or cast iron dish and fill with the mash mix. Transfer to the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes.

In the last few minutes of baking, add a little sunflower oil to a small frying pan and crack in an egg. Allow this to fry for 2-3 minutes (or until your preferred eggy preference). Once cooked, remove your Bubble & Squeak from the oven, cut yourself a slither and drape with the fried egg. I add a little sea salt to the yolk of the egg and a big dollop of tomato ketchup on the plate before I chow down.

This is just a lighter – both in method, calories and taste – approach to a traditional Bubble & Squeak but it still gave me that filthy feeling of indulgence. No, it didn’t come with anything other than what you see in the picture. I had a big slither of Bubble & Squeak with a fried egg and some ketchup. I even took another big slither into work with me the next day. Yes, it was like eating a kale spiked sweet potato mash but sometimes, a plate of mash is all that I needed in this cruel world.