Sweet Yams in Ginger-Stick Curry

Yield Serves 4 as a side dish; 2 as a main dish

Time 20 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking, 40 minutes total

The yams are best at room temperature and improve with several days in the refrigerator.

Yams and sweet potatoes are so often baked we forget how fast they cook when sliced thin and boiled. Sturdy, distinctive and gorgeous, they can go far beyond the marshmallow and cinnamon treatment.

Make no mistake: this is a creation for ginger and chile lovers. Slices of green chile, golden sticks of fried ginger, and bronzed shallots spooned over yams the color of a sunset turn out a movie star of a dish.

Cook to Cook: Cutting the ginger into paper-thin matchsticks may seem fussy, but there is method to what seems to be madness. That shape changes how you taste the ginger in this dish. Crushed or chopped ginger would taste different -- an interesting thing to remember when you see very specific instructions like these in Chinese recipes. There's always a reason.

subheading: Yams:

4 quarts salted water in a 6-quart pot

2 large yams (about 1-¾ pounds), peeled, halved lengthwise and cut into ¼-inch-thick half-rounds

subheading: Curry:

Cold-pressed vegetable oil, or extra-virgin olive oil

1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into paper-thin matchsticks

4 large garlic cloves, sliced paper-thin

1 jalapeño, sliced very thin (for milder flavor, seed the chile)

2 whole scallions, cut into 1-inch lengths

2 large shallots, thin sliced

Salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste

½ light-packed cup fresh Thai, Holy or regular fresh basil leaves, coarse chopped

Juice of 1 lime, or more to taste

Directions at splendidtable.org

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