All my life, I had never eaten sweet potato leaves…until my friends, a young couple, moved from a rural town to Sibu and they planted that in their backyard. The first time they gave me some, I did not know how to cook them, so I had to ask around and somebody told me that I could just cook them like kangkong.
Last Friday, I saw some for sale at a grocery shop in my area at RM1 a bundle, and I bought one to fry for dinner. It was easy, quite hassle-free, in fact. I just chopped some garlic and cut some chillies, fried that in oil together with a bit of belacan and in went the leaves, adding a bit of ikan bilis (anchovies) stock to them just before serving them on a plate. This was the dish I had for RM1.00, not inclusive of the bit of ingredients that I had used…
On one occasion, my friends gave me one plastic bag full of the leaves…and I left them in the kitchen sink, planning to cook them later. Then an ex-colleague came to my house to help me repair some leaking pipes and when he saw the leaves, he asked me where I had got them from. He said that they had high medicinal value and were not “cold” like kangkong which would be bad for people suffering from arthritis or rheumatism and the like. In the end, since he was praising them to the skies, I asked him whether he wanted them…and he did! He took away the whole bag full!!! Sulk! Sulk! LOL!!!
Well, I’ve googled and found some interesting information on those sweet potato leaves, so I would like to share it with everybody…
From http://ifitandhealthy.com:
According to a new research from the University of Arkansas, sweet potato leaves are chock-full of disease-fighting antioxidants. In total, they contain 15 different compounds that could help prevent heart disease, diabetes, infection and some types of cancer.
From a comment on
http://marcsala.blogspot.com
According to LSU professors in Food Science and Horticulture, sweet potato leaves are high in lutein, protective against age-related macular degeneration.
From http://www.tandurust.com
The leaves of sweet potato are…anti-diabetic. They are helpful in lowering blood sugar.
Gee! That ex-colleague of mine obviously knew his greens. The sweet potato leaves actually taste very nice, nicer than kangkong and now that I know they are so beneficial, gimme more…anytime!
Well, just to wrap up the post, that day, we had this plate of steamed white pomfret (ikan bawal putih) to go with the sweet potato leaves.
I certainly eat simple food and live a simple life, don’t I? LOL!!!
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 