Hassleback Sweet Potato with Sage and Halloumi

Sage and Sweet Potato are a match made in heaven.

This is such an easy dish to make and looks fantastic. Most of the work is in the cutting, but the oven does the rest. The word 'hasselback' is Swedish and refers to the technique of thinly slicing the vegetable (traditionally a potato, but works well with all root vegetables) to create maximum surface area to get a nice crisp outside and a soft, tender inside.

INGREDIENTS

This makes for, but you can easily make more or less, depending on how many people you are cooking for.

• 4 Large sweet potatoes

• 4 tbsp Olive oil

• 10 - 20 sage leaves

• 1 Block of Halloumi (270g)

METHOD

• Pre-heat the oven at 200 degrees C

• Clean the sweet potatoes and remove and ugly bits. Wash the sage leave and pat dry

• Get hasslebacking! An easy method is to get two (thin) wooden spoons and place the sweet potato between the two. Using a sharp knife, cut the sweet potatoes at intervals of about 5mm, stopping when you touch the spoon. This means that you'll have a nice harmonica shape, but the vegetable stays in tact at the bottom

• Smother each sweet potato with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, making sure that it gets right in between each slice

• Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake for about 40-50 minutes until fully cooked, crisp on the edges and the slices have fanned out nicely

• While it is cooking, you can prepare the sage leaves. In a frying pan with a little butter or olive oil, fry the leaves until they are crisp and crunchy

• Once the sweet potatoes are ready, you can slot the sage leaves between some of the slices. In this version, I also put some thinly sliced halloumi cheese between some of the slices for the last 10 minutes of cooking

Enjoy! Joseph x