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Off the fork: Wooing the in-laws with sweet potatoes

CHARITY ROBEY
CHARITY ROBEY

I grew up in the South with a Methodist father and a Jewish mother. My husband, Steve, grew up Jewish in the Bronx.

Before we married, I came to Thanksgiving with Steve’s family, bearing my Kentucky Grandmother Ruby’s traditional sweet potato marshmallow side dish, generously flavored with bourbon.

Since this was a cultural exchange, I decided not to worry about resistance to a “vegetable side dish” that contained cream, sugar, butter and whiskey, topped with a 3-inch layer of toasted candy.

In retrospect it was a good call. Steve’s mother ate the sweet potatoes, put aside her doubts about this confection disguised as a vegetable and decided if her boy stayed with me, he would not go hungry.

In fact his family insisted that I bring “that Sweet Potato Pie” every year, in spite of the fact that it contained no sweet potatoes (in New York, all I could find were yams) and was not a pie. One year, Steve’s Aunt Mildred complained that I had gone too light on the bourbon.

I never made that mistake again.

I also make a version using a caramelized topping instead of the traditional “Sta-Puft.” It’s delicious, as easy as the traditional one, but I would never bring it to Steve’s family for Thanksgiving.

Like General Tso’s Chicken, Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows is not just a dish, it’s a legend.

Thanksgiving Sweet Potatoes  |  Charity Robey
(Serves 4 to 6)
4 medium sweet potatoes or yams
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cream
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons bourbon
One 10-ounce bag of marshmallows
or 1.5 cups of packed brown sugar

Peel and cut sweet potatoes into chunks. Boil until soft (20 to 30 minutes). Pour off the water, put potatoes, salt and butter in a food processor and purée until smooth, adding sugar, spices, bourbon and cream. Taste and adjust seasonings (more bourbon!).

You can make it ahead up to this point and finish it right before serving it.

The crowd-pleasing version:

Spoon into a baking dish and top with marshmallows to cover.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until the marshmallows are toasted.

The gussied-up version:

Put six, 6-ounce capacity ramekins on a baking tray and divide the sweet potatoes evenly between the dishes, smoothing the surface of each with the back of a spoon. Divide the brown sugar between the dishes.

It should cover the surface of the potato mixture in a layer of sugar. Immediately put the tray with the ramekins underneath the broiler, watching and rotating the pan as the sugar covering the sweet potatoes melts and caramelizes.