My restaurant, Snackbar, is located in Oxford, Mississippi鈥搉ot far from the 鈥渟weet potato capital of the world鈥� in Vardaman County. The fine farmers there grow some terrific tubers, and while I might be a little biased in favor of these local folks, the truth is my sweet potato love goes back as long as I can remember.

My first memories of eating sweet potatoes take me back to my grandmother鈥檚 backyard in Gujarat, India. Twenty or 30 of us would descend upon her house to celebrate Diwali and a makeshift wood-burning stove would be set up to heat big drums of water to make everyone our chai.

I vividly remember grandma handing each of us kids a sweet potato and showing us how to roast them in the embers of that stove. We would poke them out with sticks and juggle them in our hands, doing a dance that telegraphed to everyone watching that no matter how hot the potato was, we weren鈥檛 going to allow that nugget of sweet goodness to drop to the ground and explode.

Most of the time, we succeeded in getting them onto a platter that one of the adults would seem to produce out of thin air just at the moment we thought that we could no longer bear the heat. The sweet potato would then be cut open lengthwise, a dollop of freshly churned butter added, maybe a light sprinkle of coarse sugar, always a pinch of salt, and, for those of us old enough to stand it, a dusting of hot red chili powder.

I have always liked my sweet potatoes like that鈥搒weet and savory with a touch of heat鈥揺ver since.

Years later, living in the American South, I balked the first time I was presented with a cloying, marshmallow-topped sweet potato pie. Where was the balance of flavors, the mix of savory and spicy?

Well, let me tell you, it turns out there is nothing to land you in some hot soup quite like turning down the sweet potato pie made by your future bride鈥檚 Maw-Maw at the first Thanksgiving you’ve been invited to attend. Since then, I鈥檝e come around and learned to appreciate the nuances of sweet potato pie鈥揵ut when left to my own devices, I immediately turn to the flavor combinations of my childhood.

I managed to avoid being banished from the in-laws鈥� house and, these days, I even make my own spin on that pie: sweet potato turnovers that are sweet yet savory. I stud my dough with a bit of cardamom and fennel and cracked black pepper. Once the little tasty parcels come out of the oven I brush them with some melted butter and sprinkle a little coarse salt and some raw cane sugar on them.

These little hand pies are delicious hot out of the oven or at room temperature with your afternoon tea. And the best thing is the in-laws love them as well.

Excerpted with permission from I Am From Here: Stories and Recipes From a Southern Chef by Vishwesh Bhatt, published by W.W. Norton.

This post originally appeared in 国产吃瓜黑料’s sister publication, Vegetarian Times.

The post Vishwesh Bhatt鈥檚 Sweet Potato Turnovers with Cardamom and Black Pepper appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.