Japanese Yam and Nagaimo Soup (山芋山药汤)

I grew up eating Japanese yams and nagaimo soup (山芋山药汤) that my grandmother always made. For all intents and purposes, it's a Chinese dish through and through, despite the fact that the names of the two ingredients are both Japanese. The irony. It's a lightly sweet, porridge-like soup that's good for breakfast, desert, as a snack, or light dinner. It's also very healthy, using only the two primary ingredients and water, no additional sugar, no oil. It's filling but low calories and has good fiber. I love this recipe because it's so simple. It's a perfect recipe for busy hungry students - a time and money saving solution to breakfast.

Nagaimo (山药) looks like this:

Since it was on sale at the Chinese market, I unwittingly bought two (more is better, right? no). Nagaimo is the Japanese name for this root, although also grows in China and used in Chinese and Korean cuisine. Apparently it's a type of yam. It's very slimy, and according to Wikipedia, the grated version was used as lube in ancient Japan... who would've though? It's definitely slippery enough to be used for that purpose.

The nagaimo needs to be first peeled, halved, and sliced. Be careful when peeling it because it's very slippery and may slide off, ending with you peeling your hands.

Immerse the slices in water in a large pot. Because I had two of those large roots, it filled up more than half of the pot already.

Now peel the Japanese yams. It is very important that Japanese yams, or yellow yams, are used. Regular orange fleshed sweet potatoes will not work! These ingredients can usually be found in Asian markets only. Peeling yams has the exact opposite problem as nagaimo. Yams are hard and the peeler has a tendency to catch and stall, so caution should also be taken.

Cut the peeled yams into irregular, bit-sized pieces. This is done by cutting the vegetable at an angle.

After everything is cut, just toss them all into the pot and submerge with more water. Cover with lid and bring to a boil. After it boils, reduce heat to medium and let simmer, stir occasionally. I definitely bought too much ingredients this time. This is the largest batch of this soup I've ever made...

Once the yams are soft and the soup starchy, it's done. Depending on the heat settings, it'll take about an hour.

Serve hot. Store the leftovers in fridge and you'll have breakfast for a week. Here's my boyfriend, the Hungry Engineering Student enjoying his bowl of soup (but he'll pretty much eat anything I give him, really).

Japanese Yam and Nagaimo Soup (山芋山药汤):

• 1 medium nagaimo root, half-sliced
• 1 medium or 2 small Japanese yellow yams, cut into bit-size
• water