“TALBOS NG KAMOTE”—Ipomoea Batatas
Ipomoea batatas is a warm season crop extensively cultivated in the Philippines. It can easily be planted any time of the year and propagated from stem cuttings.
The young leaves of sweet potato is used as an all purpose vegetable, such as addition to stews or as a salad. Sweet potato, yam, kumara, camote or kamote. They come in many colors, shape and sizes.
The root is usually eaten as a snack. In its simplest, boiled camote with a pat of butter is a cheap snack. You can also mash it with milk and sugar. But I usually avoid camote because of the repercussion later. My mother used to make camote “Ginataan” incorporated with other root crops such as taro, tapioca, purple yum and more which is quite nice, actually.
Its roots are high in calories and vitamin A and the leafy tops are eaten as vegetables. The tops, especially purplish ones are used for diabetes.
Talbos ng Kamote, also known as Sweet Potato Leaves or Camote Tops (scientific name Ipomoea Batatas) is another one of my favorite vegetables but I never get to eat them all the time as they are not always available in Asian Markets or Filipino Stores here in Vienna. Other than buying them from markets, sometimes friends give them to us straight from their garden, during summer season of the year. Or I have to travel extra to Czech Republik, where I could get volumes of fresh “talbos ng kamote”. I love Talbos ng Kamote for its health benefits, according to study such as vitamins A, B and C, calcium and phosphorus. High in iron, excellent sources of antioxidative compounds,which may protect the human body from oxidative stress that is associated with many diseases including cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
I love it just blanch in boiling vinegar-water (or without vinegar) and drain. Add tomatoes and “Lasona” (sibuyas tagalog) and seasoned or deep in bagoong (shrimp paste)…hmmm…with fried fish and hot rice as you could see picture above.
icookitravel.com 