Sweet Potato Recipe (gogo Thanksgiving)

Darkewolfe

Ok, I was trying not to have to post here, but I have failed to find what I want on the internets. Whenever I had Thanksgiving with my family, we always prepared sweet potatoes the same way. It was my mom's recipe. and she passed a few years back, so I can't just ask.

Basically, I don't really like the mashed sweet potatoes that most people make, often with marshmallows on them. This recipe involves boiling sweet potatoes (yams this year), skinning them, slicing them into quarters and then baking them with a brown sugar and butter sauce on them. Does anyone have a recipe like that? I'm pretty sure I could guess, but I'm pretty bad at predicting how long things to bake. Also, I'm not sure what the ratio for butter to brown sugar should be.

Any tips appreciated.

UncleChet

I like this recipe for candied yams.
Boil till fork tender, or use canned yams. If using canned, drain off the liquid and rince the yams.
Prepare in a 2qt sauce pan 1 1/2 to 2 cups of orange juice, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, and 1/2 stick of butter.
add cinnamon and nutmeg about 1teaspon of cinamon and 1/4 nutmeg. Get this simmering until it starts to thicken. it should have reduced in volume by about a quater. Pour this syrup/sauce over your yams in a deep baking dish.

Throw into the oven at 350ish for about 30 minutes. Spoon out yams and spoon sauce over them.

Sorry, nothing is too exact, I usually eyeball it till it meets my liking.

Djeet

This recipe (minus the bananas) is the way sweet potatoes were traditionally made when I sat at the kids table during Thanksgiving; I'm planning on using it this year. It has a brown sugar and pecan crumble on top (not marshmallows). It's good for a traditional serving, I much prefer my sweet potatoes made more savory, but it's hard to find those kinds of recipes.

When shopping for sweet potatoes/yams try to get the Garnet or Jewel varieties, they're the tastiest.

Lardalish

You usually want to avoid boiling sweet potatoes, the water leeches out a loooot of flavor from them.

I would just bake them till they're done, that should take 20-30 minutes at 350 F depending on how big they are, basically cook em till a knife slides in real easy. If it doesn't just check it again every 5 minutes or so. You can cook these the day before or just early since you're gonna be putting them back in the oven. So cook em till they're done, peel em, cut em up and either store them in the fridge till you're ready or put em in an oven safe dish big enough to hold em.

For the glaze Id probly start off with two sticks of butter melted and half a cup of dark brown sugar with some cinnamon and nutmeg tossed in. Give it a taste and see if you like it, then pour it over the yams in the dish and pop it back in the oven at 350. Cook till reheated and nice and glazed, Shouldnt be more than 15 minutes or so. Be sure to get a spoon in there and ladle the glaze over the potatoes during that.

Darkewolfe

Lardalish wrote: »

You usually want to avoid boiling sweet potatoes, the water leeches out a loooot of flavor from them.

I would just bake them till they're done, that should take 20-30 minutes at 350 F depending on how big they are, basically cook em till a knife slides in real easy. If it doesn't just check it again every 5 minutes or so. You can cook these the day before or just early since you're gonna be putting them back in the oven. So cook em till they're done, peel em, cut em up and either store them in the fridge till you're ready or put em in an oven safe dish big enough to hold em.

For the glaze Id probly start off with two sticks of butter melted and half a cup of dark brown sugar with some cinnamon and nutmeg tossed in. Give it a taste and see if you like it, then pour it over the yams in the dish and pop it back in the oven at 350. Cook till reheated and nice and glazed, Shouldnt be more than 15 minutes or so. Be sure to get a spoon in there and ladle the glaze over the potatoes during that.

I've never heard of not boiling them. For as long as I remember, we always have. Hmm... You and Unclechet have very similar recipes, so I'll try to play with that. Thanks!

truck-a-sauras

Darkewolfe wrote: »

This recipe involves boiling sweet potatoes (yams this year), skinning them, slicing them into quarters and then baking them with a brown sugar and butter sauce on them. Does anyone have a recipe like that? I'm pretty sure I could guess, but I'm pretty bad at predicting how long things to bake. Also, I'm not sure what the ratio for butter to brown sugar should be.

Any tips appreciated.

My wife does this tons during the winter and I'll be making this for Thanksgiving this year. Slightly different, but first wash the potatoes down then cut into like quarters or steak fry type sizes. Then toss them all into one of those large pyrex 13x9 pans (can take only like 3 or 4 potatoes to fill the pan). Coat them in olive oil by pouring in just a bit into the pan, toss and roll them around with your hands to coat the potatoes, you shouldn't add too much oil, there shouldn't be pools of oil, just a slight amount enough to coat the outside of potatoes, and it is ok if they aren't 100% coated.

Now spread them back out now you have your choice of brown sugar or even honey, or both if you want some real super sweetness. We usually go with the honey, again don't go crazy, you aren't even looking to get a full coat here, just get a little touch of honey here and there on the potatoes. Then lightly sprinkle some brown sugar on top, use a light touch here also.

bake for like an hour around 375 or 400, you will need to keep an eye on this, so check occasionally. The timing is dependent on how many potatoes you used and the size of the cuts you made. Remember the brown sugar make give a "blackish" burnt appearance when it caramelizes a bit if you have too big a spot here or there, but overall you should be able to eyeball when they are done.

you could try and substitute butter instead of the olive oil, but I've never tried. Somewhat similar to what you seemed to explain. Hopefully a decent starting point I hope.