Hungry? This colourful sweet potato salad can be whipped up in a flash

Harissa paste is delicious in this sweet potato salad offset with a flavourful goat’s cheese.

Harissa paste, that Moroccan stalwart, is something I hoard jars of in my cupboards. Whether slicked over chicken thighs, marinated into steaks or used simply to add spice and zing to roast potatoes, it’s something I would now struggle to part with. It is delicious in this salad with the sweet potatoes and pungent goat’s cheese.

Sweet Potato and Harissa Salad
Serves 2

Ingredients

• 75g sunflower seeds
  
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm dice
• 2 tbsp rose harissa paste
• 100g goat’s cheese
• 1 small red onion, finely sliced
• small handful of mint, roughly chopped
• 4 radishes, finely sliced
• 1 small orange, peeled and segmented
• extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt flakes

Method

1  Heat a large frying pan over a medium-high heat. Once the pan is hot, add the sunflower seeds and toast, shaking the pan back and forth, for a minute or so until the seeds release their earthy aroma. Tip into a small bowl and set aside until needed.

2  Return the pan to a medium-high heat and add the olive oil. Once the oil is hot and starts to shimmer, add the sweet potato pieces and fry, tossing occasionally, for 15-20 minutes, until the sweet potato is tender enough to eat, and is slightly charred. Add the harissa and toss through the potatoes, still on the heat, for a minute or so. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

3  Tip the cooled pieces of harissa-slicked sweet potato into a large mixing bowl and crumble in the goat’s cheese. Add the onion, almost all the mint and the radishes, and toss together.

4  Season to taste. Serve the salad with orange segments on top, a drizzling of extra virgin olive oil, and scatter with the remaining chopped mint.

Extracted from A Flash in the Pan by John Whaite (Kyle Books, approx €22). Photography by Nassima Rothacker.