Stir-fried ginger and chilli oca & Marché Charonne

The 11th arrondissement’s Boulevard de Charonne brims with market bustle Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Spanning the 200 metres south from Alexandre Dumas metro, Marché Charonne squeezes in 25 fruit and veg stalls as well as the usual meat, cheese and mobile phone cover sellers. While ambling along one of these many fruit and veg stalls I spied a crate of pinky red tubers, which turned out to be oca. What a find! They resemble a wacky radish-come-dragon fruit, and are certainly the most flamboyant tuber I’ve come across. Wide-eyed I asked for 500 grams, to which the quaffed stall holder pointed out that they were a rather steep 14 euros a kilo, with a tone that said “spend the rest on some lippy love”.

The oca I picked up was grown in France but googling tells me it’s originally from South America and is massively popular in New Zealand. Fancy that.

Seeing as it was the first time I’d cooked with oca I played it safe, slicing and stir-frying with ginger and chilli, adding sesame seeds for extra nuttiness. It tastes a lot like potato, a little bit sweeter but nonetheless more of a canvas than standalone art. And although the pink fades to violet when cooked oca still makes a rather stunning side.

Ingredients
1 tbsp sunflower oil
250g oca, sliced
3cm ginger, peeled and finely sliced
2 birds eye chillies, seeds removed and finely sliced
1 tsp sesame seeds
drizzle sesame oil
1 tbsp chopped coriander

Serves 2

Method
Heat a frying pan or wok until it’s lightly smoking then add the oil and let it get nice and hot before tipping in the oca. Allow the oca to cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently then add the ginger, chilli and sesame seeds for another 2 minutes and season with salt. Take off the heat and drizzle with sesame oil and scatter with coriander before serving.