Thursday, January 5, 2012

How To Make Fire Roasted Hassleback Sweet Potatoes

A part of dinner last night was those cute Hassleback potatoes and after dinner, Alexis wondered aloud if we could do that with sweet potatoes.  Why not?  So I tried it for lunch.  You could also cook this in the oven at the same time and temps, but fire roasting adds that extra touch.
Fire Roasted Hassleback Sweet Potatoes
2 ea sweet potatoes, washed and dried
2 Tbsp butter
3/4 tsp salt
3 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp Agave nectar (or honey)
1/4 tsp cinnamon, fresh grated
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
Light your charcoal.  Set up your charcoal grill for an indirect set up (cooking over a void with coals to the sides) at 425f. 
Slice the potatoes almost all the way through in 1/8" intervals.   I picked up a trick that makes that easier somewhere on the Internet and can't remember where.  So I can't give appropriate credit but I didn't come up with this genius idea. 
Remove and let cool for 5 minutes.  You might need a wide spatula to remove them without breaking.
Meanwhile melt the 3 Tbsp of butter and add the agave nectar (or honey), cinnamon, and red pepper.  Drizzle the butter mixture over the potatoes and serve.
I'm not a huge fan of sweet potatoes, I usually make them because my life loves them (this was a practice run for Valentines and our anniversary coming up).    But I really liked these.  The fire roasting enriched the flavor and the velvety butter sauce has sweet with a subtle heat to it. 
Deep Fried Hassleback Potatoes
While that was cooking, curiosity struck again.  I wondered if you could deep fry small russets done hassleback style so I tried it with two of them.  I deep fried them for 3 minutes at 375f.   As soon as they came out of the fryer, I hit them with kosher salt.
They were good but I prefer them baked.  The petals or slices open up better during baking whereas the frying happened so quick that I had to "reslice" some of the pieces to open them manually before salting. 

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