Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Purple Sweet Potato Wedges #PantryInsiders

Maybe it doesn't happen at your table, but it seems like a lot of holiday meals tend to stay within a pretty limited color scheme. Mostly brown and beige. Maybe veering into the orange of carrots or sweet potatoes or squash.

Green beans might show up, but it's not unusual for them to be covered with crunchy bread crumbs. Crunchy brown bread crumbs.

One way to add a little more color is to trade your orange sweet potatoes for purple ones.

To make them even more ... different, I decided to serve them in wedges rather than the more usual mash. Of course, you could do this with the usual orange sweet potatoes, or mix orange and purple.

The great thing about this recipe is that it can be scaled to feed as many people as you need to.

When you're buying sweet potatoes, get smaller ones so the wedges are reasonable serving sizes without needing to cut them into thin wedges or chunky pieces. If you have no choice except larger potatoes, that's fine, too.

The great thing about these potatoes is that you can start them the day before and finish them in the oven just before serving, so that leaves you plenty of time to fuss with everything else you're serving.

This post is my last post in a series sponsored by Pompeian, and they supplied me with olive oil as well as compensation for these posts. The recipes and methods are all mine and not influenced by the brand. Needless to say, I use a lot of olive oil here, even when posts are not sponsored. I'd like to thank Pompeian for this fun opportunity.

Purple Sweet Potato Wedges

Purple sweet potatoes, as needed
Pompeian extra virgin olive oil
Cinnamon sugar
Kosher salt

Scrub the potatoes and place them in a large pot. Yup, we're boiling them first. This method results in potatoes that are soft and creamy in the center with a little bit of a crust.

Add water to cover, and a teaspoon of salt. Bring the water to a boil, then lower to an active simmer. Cook until the potatoes are tender when poked with a fork. You don't want them mushy, just cooked.

Drain the water.

If you want to finish them tomorrow, refrigerate them. If not, then keep going.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Cut the potatoes in quarters lengthwise to form wedges. If these are too large for individual servings, cut them in half crosswise.

For casual meals, make sweet potato fries using the same method!
Arrange the wedges on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil, coating them evenly. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. I suggest a light sprinkle to add a little bit of cinnamon flavor, but you can add as much as you like.

To spread the seasoning more evenly over the potatoes, hold the shaker well above the potatoes rather that sprinkling from a short distance.

Bake to heat and crisp the potatoes, and to warm them if they've cooled off - about 15 minutes - depending on the size of the potatoes and whether you've refrigerated them or not.

Remove the potatoes from the oven and sprinkle with kosher salt before serving. You could sprinkle with salt earlier, but if you do it last, you'll have pretty white sparkly bits of salt on the dark purple potatoes.

Serve hot.

Thanks to Pompeian for sponsoring these posts. You can find them online on the web or Facebook.

Want to do something fun? Pompeian has an app (right here) where you can print a custom label with a family recipe and a family photo that you can put on an olive oil bottle. Wouldn't that make a neat stocking stuffer for the holidays?
Yum