How to make sweet potato rostis with fried eggs and tomatillo salsa

A savoury pick-me-up with creamy sweet potato and tart tomatillo salsa, these rostis are the perfect comfort food for slow weekend mid-mornings

These sweet potato rostis are perfect for brunch, light snacks or finger food (Pics by Julia Platt Leonard)

People tend to either love or loath brunch, a meal mash up of breakfast and lunch. But if you’re lucky enough to have a lie-in on the weekend, brunch is a gift. You’ve missed breakfast but you can’t wait for lunch to eat. This is when brunch is just the ticket.

My rules for brunch are that it needs to be substantial – something that can fuel me through till dinner. It also needs to be something that won’t take ages to clean up (it is the weekend after all). This recipe ticks both boxes.

You can cook everything in one frying pan, minus charring the tomatillos, and, to be honest, you can skip that step if you want. The sweet potatoes cook first, getting a nice crispy layer underneath, then you add the eggs.

The tomatillo salsa gives it a nice, tart edge that cuts through the creaminess of the sweet potato. Tomatillos are a member of the nightshade family and you can buy tinned ones online or fresh at some green grocers.

Fresh is best and you simply peel away the outer papery skin. Tomatillos have a slightly sticky covering, which you rinse off before chopping. This is a riff on a classic salsa verde but I’ve used red chillies rather than green.

(Julia Platt Leonard)

Sweet potato rosti with fried eggs and tomatillo salsa

Serves 2

4 eggs
1 sweet potato, around 400g
2tbsp oil

For the salsa

2-3 tomatillos
juice of ½-1 lime
½ bunch of coriander, about 10g, chopped
½ red chilli pepper, or more to taste, chopped
1 spring onion, green part only, chopped

To make the salsa, peel off the outside papery layer of the tomatillos. Char them under a grill or on a gas flame until they’re slightly blackened in places. Chop them and place in bowl. Add the juice of half a lime (you can add more if needed), the coriander, chilli pepper and spring onion. Taste – add more lime juice if you want – and season with salt. Set aside.

Peel the sweet potato and coarsely grate it. Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the oil and spread the grated sweet potato over the bottom of the pan evenly. Sprinkle with some salt and drizzle the other tablespoon of oil over the top. Cook until the bottom of the sweet potato has browned and is nice and crispy. Crack the eggs on top. You can either cook the eggs on the stove or in the oven at around 180ºC if you’re using an ovenproof frying pan. Cook until the whites are set but the yolks are still runny.

Divide and serve on two plates topped with the tomatillo salsa.

@juliapleonard