Recipe corner: king prawns with sweet potato mash and chilli viniagrette

I know this might sound a little bit weird, but trust me, it's rather delicious.  Prawns and sweet potato together has the potential to be overwhelmingly...well, sweet, but drenched in the delicious sauce it suddenly all works together in an exciting balance of flavours.  I copied this recipe down from the internet many, many years ago and didn't note where it came from - so apologies to whomsoever I have stolen this from.  And thanks for a fabulous dish.

A note on portion size: it's quite small, but personally I wouldn't be tempted to up the sweet potato to compensate as it may end up ruining that balance we talked about.  Have a starter instead.  Or a pudding.  Or both.

Ingredients

1 large (around 250g) sweet potato
150g raw prawns
20g butter
Handful of finely chopped coriander
2 spring onions, chopped
Squeeze of lemon juice

For the vinaigrette:

1 red chilli
1 shallot
2 cloves of garlic
20ml olive oil
2 tsp Dijon mustard
Handful of chives
2 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 tbsp caster sugar

Serves 2, 10 pro points per portion

Roast the sweet potato whole in its skin for a good hour or so until soft (it should be easily piercable with a sharp knife).

Meanwhile, make the vinaigrette.  The best way to do this is to use a mini food processor - add all the ingredients and blitz together.  If not, you will have to chop everything very finely before combining with the wet ingredients.  Don't add all the sugar at once - go for about half and then taste.  You want the sauce to be quite sour but not overwhelmingly so.  Trust your taste buds.

When the potato is cooked, scoop the flesh from the skin and combine with half of the butter, the coriander, the spring onions and plenty of seasoning.  By mixing vigorously, you should achieve a smooth puree.

Cook the prawns: melt the rest of the butter into a frying pan and add the seasoned prawns, turning them in the fat as the grey flesh turns pink.  They will need little more than a minute on each side.  Remove from the heat and squeeze over lemon juice to taste.

Serve the prawns on top of the sweet potato and pour over the delicious sauce.  Scoff.