Sweet Potato Fritters with Smashed Avocado and Salmon

The beauty of this recipe is that you don’t need to precook any of the ingredients so it’s a quick process, particularly if you have a helper. The salmon could be cooked, raw or from a tin and well drained. Like all fritters they don’t take long but they need to cook at a low temperature to make sure the raw grated vegetables are cooked through and soft. The best avocados are those that haven’t been refrigerated, but when you consider the logistics of moving food around the country these days that’s more and more unlikely, so my tip is to buy them when they’re still hard and ripen them yourself at room temperature, which can easily take up to 10 days.

SERVES 4

(MAKES 8 FRITTERS)

• 1 ripe Hass avocado
• Juice of 1 lime
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus extra to serve
• 200 g salmon fillet, cooked and flaked (see note) or smoked or tinned salmon
• Dill or chervil sprigs and lime wedges, to serve

Fritters

• 400 g sweet potato, peeled
• Sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 large leaves silverbeet, finely chopped
• 1 spring onion, finely chopped
• 2 free-range eggs
• 1 teaspoon chopped coriander
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 150°C (fan-forced).

To make the fritters, coarsely grate the sweet potato, then place in a bowl and mix in 1 teaspoon sea salt. Stand for 10 minutes, then drain the sweet potato and squeeze out any excess liquid.

In a separate bowl, place the chopped silverbeet, spring onion, eggs and coriander. Add the sweet potato, season to taste and mix well.

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Working in 2 batches, place 3 tablespoons of mixture for each fritter into the pan and press down with a spatula. Cook on both sides for 2–3 minutes or until golden, then drain on paper towel. Place on a baking tray, cover with foil and keep warm in the oven while you cook the remaining fritters.

Smash the avocado flesh and lime juice in a bowl until smooth. Stir in the olive oil and season to taste.

To serve, place 2 fritters on each plate. Top with the smashed avocado, salmon and sprigs of dill or chervil. Drizzle with olive oil and serve with lime wedges.

Note: If using fresh salmon, drizzle a little olive oil in a frying pan over high heat. Add the fish, skin-side down and cook for 3 minutes or to the point where it will almost burn. Remove the salmon, then quickly wipe out the pan with paper towel, being careful not to burn yourself. Add a drizzle of oil or a bit of butter to the pan, reduce the heat to low–medium and return the salmon to the pan, skin-side up. Cook for 2 minutes, then rest for 10 minutes.

Remove and discard the skin, then flake the fish.