Nov. 13              #621                SWEET POTATO IDEAS

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, we thought we'd try to fire up your imagination by talking about that old standby, the sweet potato.  From a nutritional standpoint it is a star, loaded down with complex carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals.  And from a cooking standpoint, it's even better, being a very versatile vegetable.
 Chances are very good that a sweet potato in some form will be making an appearance on your Thanksgiving table, so here are a few ideas to help you get creative.
There are two basic issues with the sweet potato:  skin off or on, and bake or boil? The skin is highly nutritious, so peel it only if you have to.  Sweet potatoes are a very hard tuber, and require a good deal of cooking to soften up.  As a result you rarely see them served in their raw form.  Boiling cubed sweet potatoes is a fast and simple way of cooking them, but does little to enhance their flavor.  Baking or roasting is far more time consuming, but results in browning or caramelizing of the flesh, which makes it far tastier.  Either way, you can mash, whip or puree them to your heart's content.
For the creative cook, it's the additions that make the sweet potato recipe special.
Butter is the simplest and tough to beat.  To sweeten, maple syrup, brown sugar or molasses are most commonly used.  Orange juice has an affinity, but white sugar or honey make it into a recipe less frequently, since the darker, earthier sweeteners marry well with the sweet potato's flavor.
            To take it in a savory direction, try finely chopped ham, sausage, garlic, peppers, cut up mushrooms, caramelized onions or shallots.  An entire variety of fruits and nuts can add texture and contrast.  Ground or chopped up walnuts,  hazelnuts and almonds work nicely, while apples, pineapple, and dried fruits, especially cranberries are great add-ons.
            While some cooks like to moisten their puree with cream or chicken broth, others find virtue in a shot of bourbon.  Again, the earthiness of America's whiskey is a perfect foil for the sweet potato.  Thin the puree enough, and you have the basis for a great autumn soup.
            Eggs can extend the pureed sweet potato into a new realm.  A few whole eggs beaten in can make it fluff up.  Some cream and eggs plus brown sugar takes it in the direction of a custard suitable for pie filling.  Finally, by whipping up an intensely flavorful puree, you can fold in whipped egg whites and make a delicious soufflé.

           We think anything you can do with a regular potato you can do with a sweet potato.  Slice it thin and make chips.  Julienne it and make French fries.  Puree it, load it into a pastry tube, squeeze away, and you have duchesse potatoes.  We've even seen sweet potato salad, which isn't half as crazy as it sounds.  Try it.  You'll like it!

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