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Candied Sweet Potatoes
Boil or steam. Scrape, slice and put in pan with layers of butter, brown sugar and potatoes. Cook until candied in stove, or put in saucepan on top of stove and cook until thick syrup. Sweet potatoes can be washed, wiped and brushed with a little grease and baked in oven until mealy and soft.
A skeleton recipe of the kind common in wartime-era cookery books: no quantities, no times, and two methods run together. The hinge is to stop boiling the potatoes short of full tenderness, since they finish cooking in the sugar and butter.
- Working quantitiesFor 3 lb sweet potatoes, figure on about 4 tablespoons butter and 3/4 cup brown sugar, layered in a shallow baking dish. That serves six as a side.
- Par-boil, do not cook throughBoil or steam whole and unpeeled just until a knife enters with resistance, 15 to 20 minutes depending on size. Fully soft potatoes collapse into mush once the syrup starts to thicken.
- Scrape while warmThe skins slip off easily under cold running water as soon as the potatoes can be handled. Slice about half an inch thick.
- "Cook until candied in stove""Stove" here means the oven of a range. Bake uncovered at 375F for 40 to 50 minutes, basting two or three times with the syrup that gathers at the bottom, until the edges brown and the liquid runs thick.
- The stovetop versionUse a wide heavy saucepan or skillet so the slices sit in one or two layers, cover for the first ten minutes, then uncover and let the syrup reduce. It wants low heat: brown sugar and butter scorch quickly once the water has cooked off.
- "A little grease"For the plain baked variation this means any cooking fat — butter, bacon fat or a neutral oil. It keeps the skins from splitting and is not strictly necessary. Bake at 400F for 45 to 60 minutes until a skewer meets no resistance.
- Seasoning the original omitsA good pinch of salt in the sugar layers is worth adding; without it the dish reads as dessert. Nutmeg, or a squeeze of lemon or orange, is one way to cut the sweetness, though the recipe calls for neither.