Yautia

Yautia, also known as tannier or malanga, is a starchy root vegetable from the tropical Americas. It has a rough, hairy brown skin and dense white or cream-coloured flesh that turns slightly sticky when cooked. Its flavour is earthy and mildly nutty, sitting somewhere between taro and potato.

It’s a staple carbohydrate in Caribbean, Central American, and West African cooking, where it’s boiled, mashed, fried into fritters, or used to thicken soups and stews. It can generally be used anywhere you’d use taro or potato, though its texture is denser and more glutinous.

Yautia is not widely available in mainstream Australian shops but can sometimes be found at Latin American or Caribbean specialty grocers.