Diced potatoes in meat patties are surprisingly good. Here’s a nostalgic recipe, together with a hack for roasting sweet potatoes plus a hack for roasting sweet potatoes until both juicy and caramelised.

Time: 4/5
Would have been a three if I was only cooking for two, but this recipe doesn’t scale very well.

Effort: 4/5
There’s knife work, mixing, shaping the meatballs … be prepared to put in the work.

Hash Browns On Steroids

My mom visited me last weekend and gave us some sweet potatoes. It’s the sort of love language that we both inherited from my grandma, who makes hundreds of savoury glutinous rice dumplings (zongzi) to give out to her friends and neighbours whenever the season comes.

Her visit brought up vague childhood memories of a recipe that made a few appearances on the dinner table a long time ago. I recall a sort of fried meatloaf/burger patty situation where the meat was mixed with finely diced potatoes and onions.

I felt inspired to recreate it based on that distant memory. It turned out very good! The little bits of potatoes and onion gave the patties some interesting textural contrast, and provided a lot of moisture (kind of like what grated onions do in Turkish kofte meatballs). And the potato bits on the outside of the patties got fried in oil, and we all know how wonderful fried potatoes are. So I’ll count that as a win.

The second win was definitely the sweet potatoes. Even though grandma always says to leave them in the cupboard to dry out and concentrate the sugars for a few days, I went ahead and roasted them right away.

The key is to split them in half lengthwise, then put the cut side down on the baking sheet with a bit of oil. That’s really all you have to do! No salt, no nothing. Don’t even peel them, the skin traps moisture and steams the flesh, keeping the insides of each piece soft and moist while the cut surface caramelises into a crispy, gummy layer.

All in all, this was a fabulous dinner. A+. How was this as a meal prep recipe, though? I have my reservations.

It’s work to dice the potatoes and onions, it’s work to fold them into the meat mixture, and it’s work to shape them into little patties. Then when it comes to fry them, the little bits of vegetables tend to fall off into the oil. It also takes more time to cook a lot of patties than a stew or a roast, because I’m limited by the wok’s surface area.

Sure, the results are delicious. But this recipe isn’t something like the miso honey salmon where you can lean on a flavourful glaze and let the oven do the work, or a stew like Bolognese over rice where you can make a lot of food for not a lot of steps. Here, the reward scales linearly with the reward, and there are no shortcuts.

Sometimes you have to make the call to decide if the juice is worth the squeeze. Personally, I wouldn’t make this again for meal prep any time soon, unless I had some time to spare. I wouldn’t call it a mistake, because it makes great food. It just doesn’t fit the bill for an easy and productive meal prep recipe, which I was looking for.

But maybe I’m being too hard on myself again. This was a wonderful meal fresh, and a great meal reheated. Another addition to my repertoire, to pull out on the right occasion.

Dramatis Personae

Served 7.

Ground pork – 1200g

This doesn’t have to be pork, but it’s what we had growing up. It also doesn’t hurt that we bought a ton of it on sale, which is why I’ve been using a lot of it lately (like this minimalist Bulgogi-inspired rice bowl). Marination is nice but optional. As usual, make your own call on how fatty, juicy and caloric your meat is.

Potato – one, small

Diced fine, and mixed into the meat raw. They’ll cook alongside the pork, and because they won’t get a lot of heat that way the potatoes will still have a snappy texture which I like a lot.

To be honest, if I made this again I would use much less potato for the same amount of meat. Maybe half of a small one. There’s a limit to how much vegetable the meat mixture can hold, and too much potato bits can impair the ability of the pork patties to hold their shape without falling apart.

Onion – half, medium

Also diced fine and mixed into the pork. As with the potato, this was more than I would use the next time I make these patties. The onion and potato bits were just falling off the patties and getting burned in the oil. Something like a quarter of an onion, or maybe even just a large shallot, would probably be enough. 

Seasonings

About 3 teaspoons each of salt, white pepper and corn starch, plus a teaspoon of sugar. The sugar rounds out the savoury flavours very well, while the corn starch acts as a binder as well as holding on to the meat juices as the patties cook (a function they also play in Chinese Steamed Meatloaf).

Sweet potatoes – seven, small

The potatoes in the patties already contains carbs, so I’m being conservative with the sweet potatoes. I’m going through a weight loss phase right now, so being conservative with the portion size lines up with my nutritional goals. Even if I wasn’t cutting, having some slack in my main meals makes room for dessert (:

Scrub very well, keep the skin on, and bisect lengthwise. Even if you don’t eat the skin (and you should, it’s delicious) it will act to protect the sweet potato from drying out in the oven and give the flesh a nice fluffy, juicy texture.

Pointy Napa Cabbage – 2200g

Always eat your veggies! I can never remember what this specific type of vegetable is called. It tastes sweet, like Napa cabbage, except it has a pointy shape. An S-tier meal prep friendly vegetable if there ever was one, it’s so easy to break down, easy to clean, and doesn’t take long to prep. Literally took me 10 minutes to process more than 2kg of these.

To be stir fried with a couple cloves of smashed and peeled garlic, a bit of salt and a tiny pinch of sugar.

Executive summary

1. Wash and finely dice the potato and onion. Get it into a mixing bowl along with the pork and the seasonings, and mix vigorously until it forms a paste.
2. Make rice. Preheat oven to 190C/375F. Wash and cut the sweet potatoes. Lightly oil a baking sheet and lay them down cut side down. Roast for 30-40 minutes.
3. Form meat mixture into patties. Fry patties in batches, on both sides on medium-low heat. Cover the pan with a lid to trap steam, flipping every few minutes.
4. Cut and wash the vegetables while waiting for patties to cook.
5. Reserve the patties when done. In the same pan, stir fry the vegetables with the garlic.
6. Assemble and serve.

Play by Play

Last things first. Dice the potatoes and onions, add the corn starch and seasonings, then beat the meat until it becomes pasty and the other stuff is incorporated.

You can do the shaping right after mixing, or wait until before you cook. It depends on how you want to split up the prep time. Wet hands stop them from sticking so much, and aim for a golf ball sized sphere.

Cooking day. The sweet potatoes will take quite long, and even if they’re done before the rest of the meal they can just hang out in the oven. Start preheating the oven, scrub and bisect the sweet potatoes, then lay cut side down on a lightly oiled baking sheet.

To the patties. Meatballs into pan with medium-low heat and a bit of oil, press on them with a spatula to flatten them out, then cover. They can half-steam, half-fry like this for a couple minutes each side.

Which gives us some time to peel some garlic and prepare scallions for garnish.

Onward to the vegetables. Breakdown, rinse and drain. Check the patties every now and then to see if they’re ready to flip.

Little bits of potato and onion fell off the meatball mix. No problem, they can go into the vegetable stir fry. Waste not, want not!

It always seems like too much veg until it cooks down. Season lightly.

The sweet potatoes have finished cooking in the meantime, and they’re looking absolutely amazing!

Time to plate up and eat.

Honestly, I like the sweet potatoes the best!

Keep browsing by categories, or by tags: