29 Jun Summer veggies with kefir and crispy sweet potato

It’s been hot here in the UK and when it’s hot, I crave kefir. My mind immediately goes to childhood memories of fresh milk going sour on my Babcia’s hot windowsill. We don’t do that ritual anymore, but kefir hits that sour, dairy taste spot. In East European countries, we use kefir in various summer recipes, such as summer soups and bakes, but the most common dish that I remember was crispy fried potatoes with some salty kefir and radish slices (sometimes chives too). In my second cookbook, Amber&Rye I included a recipe from Lithuanian Greta who remembered eating something similar in her grandma’s garden, only with more vegetables involved. I love the simplicity of food like this. Just good ingredients, a mixture of salty and sweet, fermented and fresh.

A recipe for summer veggies with kefir and crispy sweet potato

This sweet potato dish is a further development of the potato and kefir idea, only with even more vegetables. The sweet potatoe give it a sweetness that I think contrasts well with all the sour. I like to add something fermented to the vegetables for that extra refreshing tang and the probiotics, of course. In this case it’s some fermented summer turnip. I was getting quite a lot of these at one point, so I decided to ferment them very simply, just by covering them in brine and leaving on my windowsill for a couple of days. Always a good idea in my book. However, if you don’t anything on the go, then you can add some halved cherry tomatoes instead. If you have some chives, they would be most welcome.