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Most Americans eat sweet potatoes only once a year, along with Thanksgiving's turkey, but for Southerners, these sweet tasting orange-flesh tuberous roots are an everyday vegetable that can be cooked using many different recipes.
There are 2 sweet potato varieties, the 'Ipomoea batatas' with a light yellow flesh and the one cutivated in the South with a dark orange flesh, the one used in this recipe.
They are often called 'yams' by Southerners but real 'yams', 'Dioscorea bulbifera', are quite different.
These sweet potatoes are excellent served really hot right from the oven, cold on a picnic, or as a barbecue coating.
Preparation time : 20 minutes
Baking time : 35 to 45 minutes
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- 3 large approximately 9-ounce [255-g] each orange-flesh sweet potatoes, scrubbed
- 2 tablespoons [30 g] butter, melted then cooled
- 1/4 cup [60 mL] brown sugar
- Grated rind of 1/2 orange
- 4 tablespoons [60 mL] freshly squeezed orange juice
- 1 pinch Cayenne pepper, or to tastet [optional]
- Butter, for the dish
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- Bring a large casserole filled with water to a boil over high heat.
- Boil cleaned sweet potatoes for 15 minutes.
- Drain then cool sweet potatoes under cold running water until cold enough to be handled.
- Peel then cut each sweet potato into 8 wedges or pieces.
- Preheat oven to 400°F [200°C].
- Lightly butter a deep baking dish large enough to hold all sweet potato pieces side-by-side.
- Evenly arrange half-cooked sweet potato pieces into prepared dish.
- Into a small casserole, mix together cooled melted butter, brown sugar, grated orange rind and orange juice.
- Bring to a boil then leave liquid to boil until reduced by approximately 1/3rd.
- If desired, stir in Cayenne pepper.
- Generously coat sweet potato pieces with this glaze.
- Bake sweet potato pieces into preheated oven, basting pieces two or three with glaze while baking, for approximately 20 to 30 minutes, until tender to the tip of a knife or a skewer.
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