Release the Thanksgiving staple from a sugary cloak of marshmallows and let sweet potatoes shine in its sun-at-dusk colorful glory.
By Stefanie Gans and Jennie Tai
LEARN
by any other name
We do not eat true yams in North America,” says Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, author of “Color Me Vegan.” “Because of a language difference, these orange-fleshed root vegetables were mistakenly called ‘yams’ when they were imported into the United States, but they don’t actually resemble genuine yams native to Africa and Asia. At this point, we tend to use yam and sweet potato interchangeably.”
cook
tweet-cipe
@MangoTomato roasted red onions & sweet potatoes mixed with cranberries, pistachios & mustard vinaigrette.
@DC_CheapEats Slice potatoes into thick noodle-like strips, simmer & stir w/ butter, sage, cinnamon & honey until twirlable.
@DCHagedorn Boil 2# peeled, 2-in. sw. potato cubes til soft. Drain. Puree w/ 1/2 c heavy cream, 1 t sugar, 1/2 t each s/p.
EAT
slurp
Mala Tang in Arlington uses sweet potato starch as the base ingredient for its sweet potato noodles. ‘Ants climbing a tree’, a typical Sichuanese dish, is a mound of stir-fried sweet potato noodles dotted with ground meat, flakes of scarlet chili and green scallions.
DECORATE
opposites attract
Bring colorblocking from your closet to the kitchen by pairing the brightly hued orange sweet potato with a majestic purple bowl. (Fiesta, $22.95; amazon.com)
TOOL
skinless
“There’s the whole argument: Do you want to hold it lengthwise or have it more like a razor,” says Paul Knipple of the dueling shapes of peelers. Knipple, co-author with his wife Angela, of “The World in a Skillet: A Food Lovers Tour of the New American South,” found the answer to peeling dilemmas. The Kyocera CP-20 Perfect Peeler offers a rotating, ceramic blade—that is “crazy sharp” says Knipple—for horizontal, vertical and angled peeling jobs.
Courtesy of The Homer Laughlin China Company (Bowl); Courtesy of Jim Folliard(Gearshift) (Noodles); Ninam/shutterstock.com (Pistachio); Dionisvera/shutterstock.com (Cranberry); Sharon day/shutterstock.com (sweetpotato); Kiboka/shutterstock.com (onion); Courtesy of Kyocera Advanced Ceramics (Peeler)
(November 2012)
