Home › Potatoes › Sweet Potato Balls
Sweet Potato Balls
To two cups hot riced sweet potatoes add three tablespoons butter, one-half teaspoon salt, few grains pepper, and one beaten egg. Shape in small balls, roll in flour, fry in deep fat, and drain. If potatoes are very dry, it will be necessary to add hot milk to moisten.
A straightforward croquette in all but name, and it depends almost entirely on the moisture of the potatoes and the heat of the fat.
- Riced potatoesBake or boil the sweet potatoes whole, then push the flesh through a ricer or food mill while hot. A masher works but leaves strings; a food processor turns the flesh gluey and the balls will slump in the fat.
- Fat temperature"Deep fat" is all the recipe says; modern practice would put it around 375F. Much cooler and the balls absorb oil and fall apart; much hotter and the sugar in the sweet potato scorches before the inside heats through.
- Judging the mixtureThe hinge of the recipe is stated at the end: the mass must be moist enough to hold together but stiff enough to shape. Add hot milk a spoonful at a time only if the potato crumbles when squeezed. Too wet and no amount of flour will save it.
- Chill before fryingThe recipe does not say so, but shaped balls hold much better after twenty to thirty minutes in the refrigerator. Fry a single test ball first.
- CoatingPlain flour is all the original asks for. For a sturdier crust, the usual croquette treatment is flour, beaten egg, then fine dry crumbs.
- Size and timingBalls of about 1 to 1 1/4 inches take roughly 2 to 3 minutes and need only to brown, since everything in them is already cooked. Fry in batches so the fat does not drop in temperature.
- YieldTwo cups of riced potato is enough as a side dish for four to six; the count depends on how large you shape the balls.
- DrainingDrain on a rack rather than piled on paper, or the underside steams and softens. Serve promptly; they do not reheat well.
Sweet potato balls belong to the great family of croquettes that fill the potato and entree chapters of American cookbooks between about 1880 and 1920, when deep frying in a kettle of lard or cottonseed oil was routine domestic practice and cooking schools taught the technique systematically. Fannie Farmer's book gives the same treatment to white potatoes, rice, hominy and chicken: bind a cooked starch or meat with egg and butter, shape, coat, fry. The sweet potato version reads as a New England kitchen's use of a Southern staple, dressed up for a company dinner in the way a plain baked root could not be. A related confection, in which each ball is formed around a marshmallow, is often traced to the same era of holiday cooking.