Candied Sweet Potato Recipe

Wash a sweet potato. The size depends on your needs. Mine was a bit big, so I cooked it in two batches.

Peel

Cut into pieces; you can use a rolling cutter or cut into cubes. I found cubes easier to cut, so I cut them into cubes. Don't make them too big, so they'll cook through easily.

After cutting, rinse with clean water to remove excess starch, then drain to make it easier to coat with starch.

Coat with a thin layer of starch; I used sweet potato starch. Don't coat with too much, or it will fall off easily when frying.

Heat oil in a pan until it reaches six-tenths of its maximum temperature.

Add the sweet potatoes and reduce the heat to medium-low.

Stir occasionally to prevent sticking, and fry over medium-low heat for 5 minutes, mainly to cook the sweet potatoes thoroughly.

After frying until cooked, turn up the heat and fry for 1-2 minutes to force out excess oil.

Remove from heat and drain excess oil. Pour out the oil from the pan; if there isn't much starch, the oil will be relatively clean and can be reserved for later use.

Pour white sugar and boiling water into a bowl in a 1:1 ratio, trying to dissolve the sugar completely, but it's okay if it doesn't completely dissolve. Use as much sugar as possible so that there's enough sugar to coat the sweet potato.

Pour sugar water into the pot and bring it to a boil over high heat. You can wash the pot used for frying sweet potatoes or not. I decide whether to wash it based on how much residue is left in the pot. If there's a lot of residue, I wash it; if there's not much residue, I don't. The picture above shows an unwashed pot with some oil still sticking to it. I poured the sugar water in directly and started boiling it.

When making the syrup, start by using high heat to evaporate the water. When the water is almost evaporated, reduce the heat to medium-low. You must pay close attention to the changes inside the pot during this process, as it is easy to lose control of the heat and fail to make the syrup.

Simmer over medium-low heat for a while, be patient, as there will be many bubbles in the pot at this point.

It starts out white, but quickly turns a sesame oil color. At this point, turn the heat down a bit, otherwise it will burn very quickly; you only have a few tens of seconds to cook it. Once it reaches the state shown in the picture, cook for a few more seconds before adding the sweet potatoes.

Because of the photo, the color in the picture is a few seconds longer than the cooking time. You could have added the potatoes a little earlier, but they weren't burnt yet.

Heat a pan over low heat, add the sweet potatoes and stir-fry quickly until evenly mixed. Turn off the heat and plate.

When placed in a dish, it already has a fibrous texture.

Keep the pot warm, scrape some of the remaining syrup in the pot with a spatula, and use chopsticks to pick up some syrup from the spatula and quickly wrap it around the sweet potato, forming threads as shown in the picture.