Organic Yacon Syrup

Yacon is an Andean root crop - Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador - grown in the same highland fields as potatoes and oca, though it is related to neither. The tuber is crisp and wet, closer to a pear than a potato, and it has been eaten fresh at harvest for as long as anyone has written it down.

The syrup is what you get when the juice is pressed out of the root and slowly reduced. It comes out dark brown and thick and tastes of caramel and molasses with a slight tang behind it. Nothing is added - the sweetness is the root's own.

How to use it

Over yoghurt, porridge or pancakes. Stirred into tea or coffee. It behaves like maple syrup or molasses in the kitchen, so it works anywhere those do - the flavour is just more caramel than either.

What is in it

One ingredient: yacon root (Smallanthus sonchifolius). Most of the sugar in yacon is fructo-oligosaccharide, a longer chain than table sugar, which is why the syrup tastes sweeter than its calorie count would suggest.

Store somewhere cool and dark. Refrigerate once opened.