Cream of Malanga Soup with Malanga Crisps

Malanga has a nutlike flavor and a smooth, soft texture when boiled, making it a good candidate for a cream-based puréed soup. Its natural starchiness makes the soup thick and rich on its own, so using half-and-half rather than heavy cream is sufficient to give it that desirable silky finish. It is quite enough to use a little chopped cilantro for garnish, giving the soup a flourish of color and a delicate herbal note, but I couldn’t resist cutting a small malanga into matchsticks and fryin