Nov 16 2011

What’s Cooking: Sweet Potato Mash

(8 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Republished from April 24, 2011 for obvious timely reasons.

I love sweet potatoes and not just at Thanksgiving. I like them baked, boiled and mashed and dipped in tempura batter and fried. They are great in breads and baked desserts. They are very nutritional, an excellent source of vitamin A and a good source of potassium and vitamin C, B6, riboflavin, copper, pantothetic acid and folic acid. Sweet potatoes are native to Central America, grown in the Southern US states since the 16th century and are in the same family of plants as Morning Glories. The plant is a trailing vine with a large tuberous root.

Sweet Potatoes are often confused with yams which are native to Africa and relate to lilies and grasses. Even though they are both flowering plants, botanically they are different.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires labels with the term ‘yam’ to be accompanied by the term ‘sweet potato.’ Unless you specifically search for yams, which are usually found in an international market, you are probably eating sweet potatoes!

A couple of Thanksgivings ago, my daughter decided to ditch the “traditional” candied version topped with marshmallow that would put a normal person into a diabetic coma and went “surfing” for something different. The recipe she found now makes it to our table more often than once a year. It is still sweet but not overwhelming. It’s great served as a side with pork or ham, as well as turkey. Nummy as a midnight snack with a little whipped cream, too.

Bourbon-Walnut Sweet Potato Mash

Ingredients:

   4 pounds red-skinned sweet potatoes

   1/2 cup whipping cream

   6 tablespoons (3/4 cup) butter

   1/4 cup pure maple syrup

   2 tablespoons bourbon

   1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

   1 teaspoon ground allspice

   3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

   1 cup walnuts, toasted, chopped

Preparaton:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Roast potatoes on rimmed baking sheet until tender, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Cool slightly. Scoop flesh into large bowl; discard skins. Mash hot potatoes until coarse puree forms.

Heat cream and butter in heavy small saucepan over low heat until butter melts, stirring occasionally. Gradually stir hot cream mixture into hot potatoes. Stir in syrup, bourbon, and all spices. Season with salt and pepper.

DO AHEAD: Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and chill. Rewarm in microwave. Sprinkle nuts over and serve.

5 comments

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    • TMC on November 16, 2011 at 09:36
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  2. in the Morning Glory family.  Just cut an eye from a tuber, put it in a jar of soil and water, and watch it grow and become a handsome vine with pretty flowers in your house!

    I wrote a long piece about them not that long ago here.

    Warmest regards,

    Doc

  3. love sweet potatoes. My blood-sugar level goes down after eating one.

    Simple starches such as regular potatoes, white rice, enriched flour, etc.. turn to sugar in your blood as soon as you eat them, but sweet potatoes don’t.

    http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/agcom…

    As healthy food goes, it’s hard to beat the sweet potato. Packed with important vitamins like A, C and B6, sweet potatoes have good antioxidant properties. They’re also an excellent source of dietary fiber, potassium and iron. Now, recent research in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has confirmed that sweet potatoes are a low-glycemic index (GI) food, which could be good news for diabetics.

    The glycemic index measures how quickly certain foods release carbohydrates into the body. High-GI foods cause blood sugar levels to spike, while low-GI foods release glucose slowly into the bloodstream.

    Dr. Jon Allen, CALS professor of food science; Dr. Van Den Truong, USDA-ARS food scientist and assistant professor of food science at N.C. State; and Dr. Masood Butt, a visiting scientist and associate professor from the University of Agriculture in Pakistan, along with students and other scientists, conducted a study that confirms the recognized low GI of sweet potato.

    The team also discovered that the Beauregard variety of sweet potatoes – which makes up about 85 percent of the production in North Carolina – has essentially the same protein patterns as a commercial dietary supplement known as Caiapo, marketed to control blood glucose in diabetics. Developed by Japanese scientists, Caiapo is derived from the peel of white-skinned sweet potatoes, which have been consumed in Japan for many years as a remedy for anemia, hypertension and diabetes.

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