Sunday, November 09, 2008

Roasted baby sweet potatoes

This is something I have been making almost every week for the last month or so--buying these teeny little sweet potatoes at the farmers market and roasting them until they are so golden, crunchy, and chewy that they actually qualify as vegetable candy. The glory of these things is that you don't peel them--just slice in half and roast. I tried to take some pictures for scale to try to show you just how tiny baby sweet potatoes are. Actually they are sold as fingerling sweet potatoes, and look like fingers they do.I was trying to get a picture of the potato next to Mason Dixon or Billie Jean so you could really appreciate how tiny they are, but Billie suddenly lunged, picked up the potato in her mouth and ran off with it. I gave up on the idea, but after that, both dogs thought the sweet potatoes were a delicious treat, so they begged for one incessantly.Anyway, you just slice them in half, no peeling needed. They are really pretty and jewel-toned inside.It's fun slicing them open just to see what color you'll get--some are dark orange, others are pale yellow. Also, they can be very strange, squiggly shapes.Split them all, put them in a baking dish and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon each red pepper flakes, sugar, salt, vindaloo powder and at least 1 tablespoon olive oil. Mix it up well and roast at 400 for 25 minutes, cut side down. Stir them up and, depending on how done they look and how many you have stuffed into the pan, let them go for another 10-15 minutes. They will get beautifully toasty and caramelized. Sort of like sweet potato chips.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oooh! I wish we had these here. I haven't seen them around. Sound delish. And Billie Jean is a cutie.