Sweet Potato Okoy (fritters)

Okoy is a favorite snack, entree or main meal on our dinner table back when we were still in the Philippines.  Whenever we went to the Hagonoy town center, we would always buy this yummy dish from one of the vendors near the tricycle parking area.

They usually made okoy from pumpkin, sweet potatoes, potatoes, or green papaya and bean sprouts with flour, eggs, salt and pepper and prawns.  Deep frying is the best way to cook this dish.  Okoy or ukoy is a traditional dish in the Philippines which is believed to have originated from Laguna.

Here in our place, it is so easy to get pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and potatoes but it's difficult to get fresh seafood like prawns.  Usually you would only be able to get the frozen ones, the boxed ones, or worst the tin ones!  This makes me a bit frustrated when I want to cook something Filipino which has seafood in the ingredients.  Oh anyway, so I have to make do of any available stuff around.  When I first cooked okoy for my husband, he literally fell in love with it!  He eats them with gusto!  Funny that 4 pieces of okoy are not enough to satisfy his cravings haha!  I made his first okoy with just pumpkin, the second one with both pumpkin and sweet potatoes and this time just with sweet potatoes.  The difference among the three okoys is that the last one was crispier than the others.  Why don't you try this wonderful okoy recipe that I did myself. 

Ingredients
1 big sweet potato (almost half a kilo) (shredded)
300 g prawns (chopped)
2 tbsp flour
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste

Procedure
Place the sweet potatoes in a big bowl.
Add in half of the chopped prawns and the other ingredients.
Mix well using your hands.
Make a ball of okoy ( a little over the size of a golf ball) and flatten it with your palm.  Top with chopped prawns.
Deep fry until golden and crispy.
Serve with your favorite dip.

Note:  I chose to chop prawns and remove the shells to make the okoy tastier and easier to eat.  You can also choose to squeeze out the juice of the sweet potatoes before mixing it with the other ingredients or just use the sweet potatoes as is.


A comment or two will be appreciated...