During the holiday season, one of America’s great producers of artisan butters, Vermont Creamery, creates a variation of their award winning Cultured Butter: .
The contrast of salty crunch with the sweetness of maple is delicious on pancakes and waffles, stirred into hot oatmeal, baked into cookies, melted over roasted squash or other veggies, potatoes and rice, or simply spread over a warm piece of crusty bread or toast. The combination of sweet and savory is a hit.
WHAT IS CULTURED BUTTER?
In France and other parts of Europe, butter is cultured by adding live bacteria to the cream before churning. The fat content of the butter has to be a minimum of 82% (in the U.S. it can be as low as 80%). The culturing process enhances the sweetness of the butter and brings out a subtle tanginess.
In the U.S, most butter isn’t cultured; the cream goes straight to the butter churn without added bacteria. This is known as sweet cream butter.
Vermont Creamery’s cultured butter has an 86% butterfat content—the highest fat content you can obtain when making butter. Higher fat content means less moisture, and it provides a higher smoke point when pan searing, a more tender crumb or crust for baking and a much more flavorful table butter.
RECIPE: CRISPY SWEET POTATO ROAST WITH HERBED COCONUT CRÈME FRAÎCHE
This recipe comes to us from Carey Nershi of the blog Reclaiming Provincial via Vermont Creamery. The combination of coconut milk, crème fraîche and sriracha add an unexpected twist. Find more exciting recipes at ReclaimingProvincial.com.
For a related dish, check out the French Provençal dish, tian.
This looks so great in the pan that we made ours in a casserole dish that could go straight from oven to table.
Note that you can substitute quality unsalted butter (like Cabot’s) for the Vermont Creamery cultured butter. Add 1/8 teaspoon of maple sugar (or to taste) and a pinch of sea salt as a substitute.
Ingredients
4 pounds sweet potatoes (approximately 2.5 inches in diameter)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1.5 tablespoons Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter
1.5 tablespoons Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter with Sea Salt & Maple
A few pinches of coarse sea salt
1 cup coconut milk
Heaping 1/2 cup crème fraîche (purchased or homemade)
1. PREHEAT the oven to 375°F. Melt the butters over low heat on the stove top, then mix together with olive oil and set aside.
2. PEEL the sweet potatoes, then slice crosswise as thinly and evenly as possible (between 1/8” and 1/16” is ideal). A mandoline will make the task far easier.
3. BRUSH a healthy coating of the butter and oil mixture over the inside of an 8” or 9” baking dish or skillet and sprinkle with a pinch of coarse sea salt. Arrange the potatoes in the dish, brush with the remaining butter and oil and sprinkle with the remaining salt.
4. ROAST the potatoes for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the middle of the potatoes are tender and the tops begin to brown and crisp. (The exact time will depend on your oven and on how thinly you’ve sliced the potatoes. Test them with a fork to make sure they’re tender in the middle.) Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes. While the potatoes are resting…
5. WHISK together the coconut milk, crème fraîche, and sriracha in a saucepan over medium heat, until just warmed.
6. POUR half of the sauce over top of the potatoes and sprinkle with half of the minced cilantro. Combine the remaining sauce and cilantro and serve alongside the potatoes, for guests to use as desired.
____________________ *Sriracha, pronounced see-RAH-jah, is a Thai hot chili sauce. It is made from red chiles, distilled vinegar, garlic, sugar and salt; and is aged for three months or longer. Unlike American hot sauces such as Tabasco, which are vinegar sauces that are infused with hot chiles, sriracha is primarily puréed chiles, making it a much thicker sauce. The sauce is named after the coastal city of Si Racha in eastern Thailand, where it was first made and marketed.
I've found that sweet potatoes really need space for a truly roasted, crisped-edge result. Aim for about one inch of space between pieces. This leads to good, dry, hot airflow that will let the potato pieces' moisture evaporate while letting them dry and crisp up more.
The secret to crispy (instead of soggy) sweet potato fries is to spread them out in an even layer with enough room so that they don't touch. This is especially important if you're making a big batch of fries. Instead of just piling more onto one baking pan, spread them out over two baking pans or cook them in batches.
The cold water bath helps rinse the starch off the sweet potatoes so they're a bit more crispy. That said, if you do not have the time, you can still get crispy baked sweet potato fries by using high heat and a little drizzle of olive oil.
Browning butter packs in tons of flavor, without dulling the sweet potatoes. Slow-roasting the sweet potatoes activates endogenous enzymes that bring out their natural sweetness. A touch of maple syrup, butter, and a bit of chopped thyme are the only embellishments these naturally sweet sweet potatoes need.
A: This sure sounds a lot like potatoes that have been stored too long, in too cold of an environment before cooking. When potatoes are held below 41°F for too long a period, the starches convert to sugar and it changes the cooking chemistry.
Typically when you roast sweet potatoes, they end up mushy, not crispy. That's because the high sugar content and moisture in the potato creates a softer result. In this case, they get their crispiness not by deep frying, but by sprinkling a secret ingredient over and baking them!
When it comes to the actual cooking, you want to fry the french fries twice. The first round is at a lower temperature to cook the inside of the potato and the second time you'll use a higher temperature to make the fries golden brown and crispy.
If you cut your sweet potato fries in uneven sizes (i.e., some much thinner than others), the smaller fries may start to burn while the thicker fries are still cooking. If all of the fries are burning, the temperature of your air fryer is too high or the fries have been cooking for too long.
This helps remove most of the starch in the potato, resulting in a crispier finish. It also means that some of the natural sugars are removed, meaning that the outside won't burn before the middle is cooked. You want a light, neutral oil with a high smoke point like vegetable or rapeseed.
TIPS & TRICKS to Make this Recipe: The main secrets to achieving that incredible crispy texture, is to soak the cut sweet potatoes in cold water for at least 30 minutes. This helps remove the starch from the sweet potatoes so they´re not limp & soggy.
Boiling sweet potatoes retains more beta-carotene and makes the nutrient more absorbable than other cooking methods such as baking or frying. Up to 92% of the nutrient can be retained by limiting the cook time, such as boiling in a pot with a tightly covered lid for 20 minutes.
Sweet Potatoes:Sweet potatoes tend to have a higher moisture content than regular potatoes. This can result in a slightly faster baking time. When baked at the same temperature, a medium-sized sweet potato might take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour at 425°F (220°C) to become fully tender.
Preheat the oven to 425°F and place a piece of foil on a baking sheet. Use a fork to poke holes into the sweet potatoes, set them on the baking sheet, and roast for 40 to 50 minutes, or until puffed up and soft inside when pierced with a fork.
So what's Jeremy's secret to making crispy roasted sweet potatoes? First, it's key to par-boil the potatoes in salted water mixed with a little baking soda. The baking soda breaks down the potato's surface, creating a rough texture that enhances crispiness upon roasting.
The answer to the problem is to just bake the sweet potato longer, until it's soft to the touch. Soaking will not help soften your sweet potato unless you are putting the potato and water in a pot on the stove and cooking it. If your sweet potato is still hard it's not cooked enough.
To make crispy roast potatoes, the temperature of the oven needs to be hot. If the oven is too hot the potatoes will burn before they crisp up. If the oven temperature is too cold your potatoes will not be crispy.
How to tell if sweet potatoes have gone bad. If your sweet potato is soft in spots, smells rotten, or oozes a mysterious liquid, that potato should be discarded. Another sign that sweet potatoes have taken a turn for the worse is if they start growing stalky purplish sprouts.
Answer: It's likely the sweet potatoes were not cured and stored properly. After harvest, sweet potatoes should be cured for 7 to 10 days at a temperature of 80 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit and relative humidity of 80 to 90 percent.
Introduction: My name is Frankie Dare, I am a funny, beautiful, proud, fair, pleasant, cheerful, enthusiastic person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
