In episode 058 we are making Savory Mashed Sweet Potatoes. These make a killer side dish for just about any dinner, especially the holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. We are roasting the sweet potatoes instead of boiling them which brings out even more flavor. It is balanced with the addition of butter, roasted garlic and balsamic vinegar.
Transcript
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Intro: Welcome, welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.
Susie Weinrich: All right, let’s read a little, what do I want to call it? A comment, five star comment from this recipe that we’re making today. “Very delicious period. No leftovers.” I think that’s a good sign.
Super good, super delicious, super balanced flavors. We are making a savory mashed sweet potato recipe today. I think that we’re all used to the really sickly sweet mashed sweet potatoes that are loaded with brown sugar topped with marshmallows. It can taste a little bit more like dessert than a savory dish that you would serve with dinner, and so I set out to create something that was super balanced and really rounds out the flavor of the sweet potatoes. I’ll tell you, this recipe accomplishes it in spades. I absolutely love this recipe. I will tell you I’m not even a huge, sweet potato fan, but I absolutely love this recipe.
Savory Mashed Sweet Potatoes Recipe: So no tips today. We’re just going to get straight into it and go over everything, how to make your savory mashed sweet potatoes. One difference with this recipe. A lot of mashed sweet potato recipes out there call for you to boil the sweet potatoes. We’re not doing that. We are going to develop their natural sweetness and their really deep, beautiful flavor by roasting the sweet potatoes first before mashing.
So, what you want to do is preheat your oven to 400 degrees and you’re going to grab a nine by 13 or larger baking dish, or a rimmed baking sheet. What you’re going to do is cut your sweet potatoes in half lengthwise, lay them cut side up on that roasting pan, and then you’re going to drizzle them with about three tablespoons of olive oil. You could also use canola oil here. So some type of, you know, just neutral oil will.
Then on that same tray, you’re going to take a small head of garlic, not one clove. We want a whole entire head of garlic. You just need a small one. You’re going to trim the very top of that head of garlic off, discard the top. Then you’ll take a small piece of foil, hold it in your hand, put that whole entire head of garlic cut side up in the foil, drizzle just about a teaspoon of olive oil over the top, and then close it up so that it makes a nice little pouch for your garlic. What you’re doing is roasting that garlic and we’re going to add it to the mashed sweet potatoes, which is, Ooh, so good. If you love garlic, you’re going to love these. So pop that in the oven and you’re going to let that roast for about 15 minutes. Pull the sweet potatoes out, flip them over, and this is going to help caramelize the top of the sweet potatoes, which is so delicious. Pop them back in the oven for about another 20 minutes.
Now after that’s done, you’re going to want to make sure that your potatoes are cooked through. So take a fork and just poke it into one of the sweet potatoes. If it just goes in without any resistance, except for of course the skin, then they’re done. If you meet any resistance, you’re going to want to pop them back in the oven for five minute increments. However, before you do that, take the garlic off of the tray because you do not want to burn your garlic. So once they’re cooked all the way, you just want to let them cool for a little bit because you’re going to actually handle them with your hands or with a towel and you don’t want them to be smoking hot.
So as soon as they’re cool enough to handle, what I usually like to do is take a towel, like a clean kitchen towel and put it in my hand, and then I’ll pick up a potato and then over a bowl where I’m going to mash the potatoes, I squeeze the inside of the potato, out of the potato skin. It usually works perfectly. Now, of course, if you don’t want to do it that way, you can just hold the potato in your hand, take a large spoon, and scrape all of the sweet potato out of the skin of the potato. Put it into just a large bowl, and then repeat that with all of the sweet potatoes.
Then you want to take that head of garlic, take it out of the foil packet, turn it upside down over those sweet potatoes, and just give it a squeeze. All of the roasted garlic should squeeze right out, and it will be so yummy. It will smell so good. So when you roast garlic, It becomes kind of sweet, but still savory and really takes off that bite of the garlic and so you can add an entire head into your sweet potatoes.
Now, here’s where we’re going to round some of the flavors out. You’re also going to add one tablespoon of brown sugar. That’s going to enhance the natural sweetness of the sweet potato, so it rounds that sweetness out. You’re going to add four tablespoons of salted butter, one tablespoon of milk, or half and half, and one teaspoon of kosher salt.
Now this is the part that I absolutely love. You’re going to add two teaspoons of balsamic vinegar in with those potatoes and that just adds that high note that the sweet potatoes need. Sweet potatoes have a very flat flavor, and when you add that tangy balsamic vinegar, it just is perfect.
Now, either with a potato masher or with a handheld mixer, you can mix everything together. I will tell you the handheld mix works really, really well. So mix those all up until they are at your desired consistency.
Now, of course, before you serve this dish, you want to give it a taste. So taste it, see if you like a little more balsamic vinegar. See if you want them a little sweeter. Do you want some more salt, whatever’s going to make them right for you, add just a little dash of whatever it needs.
One thing that I do love to do when I serve these. I’ll put them in a shallow serving dish, take the back of a spoon and make some swooshes and some divots in there. Put a pat or two of butter on top so that it melts over top and keeps it looking super delicious. Then I will take some flaky sea salt. In my kitchen I have Maldon flake sea salt, and actually in the recipe card and in the show notes, I will link that product for you. It’s literally flakes of salt that are kind of crispy, and that makes such a wonderful garnish on top of these sweet potatoes, you’re going to love it.
Now you don’t need any gravy. You don’t need anything or any marshmallows or whatever topping for these sweet potatoes. So you can serve these right alongside any protein, roast, holiday table, wherever you need a starchy side dish. These savory mashed sweet potatoes will work perfectly.
So that does it for today’s episode of Let’s Make Dinner. Of course, I will link all of the recipes and products that I talked about right in the show notes for you so you can save it, pin it, make it whatever you need when you are ready.
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Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, make your dinner time a little easier. See ya.
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