Sweet Potatoes Mayai recipe for baby-led weaning

A few years ago I got to visit Tanzania for a couple of months. A popular street food was "chips mayai"-- deep-fried chips with an egg (the 'yai', plural 'mayai') broken over them, resulting in a tangled, greasy-good mass of chip and egg, best slathered with pilipili (pepper) sauce. This recipe was inspired by that, but is less greasy and involves sweet potatoes rather than fries.  It's a good general formula that could be readily adapted to whatever veggies you have on hand-- potatoes, squash. Well, really just potatoes or squash. Maybe carrots. Still! That's pretty versatile!

My main discovery is that if you grate things directly into your frying pan, they cook quickly and you save time on cleanup. I am gonna be doing this with everything from now on. Well, really just potatoes or squash. Maybe carrots. Still! I eat a lot of potatoes and squash! So it's a useful technique!

Sweet potatoes mayai

2 Tbs olive oil
2 medium sweet potatoes
1/2 onion
1 egg
ground black pepper to taste
1 tsp dried thyme
your favorite pepper sauce

Get the olive oil heating up in your trusty skillet over medium-high heat.  Using the coarsest side of your grater, grate in the onion. (Watch your fingers!). Give it a stir. The quickly grate in the sweet potatoes. Stir in the black pepper and thyme.  Let cook until potato is cooked through, stirring with restraint (you want browned bits).  It really only takes a few minutes. When the veggies are cooked, break your egg over the middle of the pile. Cook like you would any fried egg, flipping halfway through (aim it onto some unincorporated veggies if you can). 

Let some cool for the baby, and eat yours with added salt and hot sauce. Yum!

Perfect for those practicing their pincer grip, or those not quite ready for that can grab a big hunk with egg and still get some veggies, too.