Sunday Kitchen: Bel MacDonald + Sweet potato with roasted garlic, goat’s cheese & green peppercorn butter recipe

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Belinda MacDonald in her home kitchen. Photo / Mike Scott

Since co-winning the first My Kitchen Rules competition, Belinda MacDonald has been busy making food the centre of her career, with her second cookbook, Flavour Kiss, released this year. Her next book is shaping up well with more flavour-packed ideas and recipes from the family table. In the meantime you can catch weekly video recipes on her website, flavourbomb.co.nz, to add something new to your table during the busy week. All are under 10 minutes long, inspiring food lovers with quick, delicious recipe ideas, including clever ingredient swaps and making dishes lower in carbs and healthier. Here she shares a delicious baked sweet potato recipe from Flavour Kiss that is a perfect comfort food on a cold Sunday eve.

On a typical Sunday in my kitchen with kids around, it’s just as chaotic as any other day. But we have possibly managed a smidge of a lie-in, which is lush. We try to have a cooked breakfast together - I’m usually on eggs, while hubby’s on the barbie blistering bacon or black pudding. I get the girls to pick whatever fresh soft herbs they can find in our winter garden and squeeze fresh lemon and olive oil on them, adding a glistening vibrance to our humble plate of bacon and eggs. A family ride around town on our e-bikes is always a good way to clear the cobwebs and an activity we can all do together. I love to pick citrus from our heavily laden trees this time of year and often make citrus-gasmic sunshiny treats for the school week ahead. Lawns get mowed, sheets get washed, lots of thought goes into a beautiful family dinner but I try to make it simple. Often we bust out the hibachi (Japanese barbecue) late afternoon, if it’s not too blustery on our hill, to enjoy the charcoal “off-the-streets-of-Asia” vibes with some grilling and basting while enjoying a drink or two together - all while trying to work out the logistics of drop-offs and pick-ups for the coming week’s activities.

I’ve chosen this dish because it screams comfort with a touch of fabulosity. It’s also affordable, easy to whip up, which is important on a Sunday, and happily feeds any extras. The dreamy butter works beautifully with the baked sweet potatoes, but it’s also wonderful dolloped on to a piece of steak or mixed through crunchy steamed broccoli or cavolo nero. If you’re lucky enough to grow your own garlic or know someone who does, you can garnish these with delightful garlic flowers, which adds an extra whack of garlic flavour. If you’re short on time, you could serve the sweet potatoes after the first bake.

Serves 4

4 small sweet potatoes or kūmara

1 whole garlic bulb

olive oil, to drizzle

salt and black pepper, to taste

Roasted garlic, goat’s cheese & green peppercorn butter

Cloves from 1 roasted bulb of garlic (see above)

200g cream cheese

100g goat’s cheese

50g fresh parsley

1 tsp fresh thyme

1 lemon, zest and juice

1 tsp green peppercorns, in brine

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.

2. Wash the sweet potatoes, then wrap in baking paper then foil. Wrap the whole garlic bulb for the butter in the same way. Roast the garlic bulb for 30 minutes or until completely soft and sweet. Roast the sweet potato for about 20 minutes or until soft and fudgy to touch, then set aside to cool.

3. Slice the cooled sweet potatoes in half, then in half again. Use the tines of a fork to scuff up the flesh and push it flatter. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and bake again for 20–30 minutes or until the edges are crispy.

4. For the butter, squeeze the garlic cloves out of the roasted bulb into a bowl, add all the other ingredients and mash together using a fork (you could also do this in a food processor).

5. Serve the twice-baked sweet potatoes with a dollop of the butter.

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