This recipe is something I learned from my mother. She used to make it often when we were growing up especially with a roast. Today it has also become one of Miriam’s favourite dishes. So I think it will continue for another generation. The only difference is our sweet potatoes here in Israel are orange instead of a more yellow coloured one as in South Africa.
My mother used to make it in a pot on the stove and we started out doing it like this but due to the fact that we have to serve it on a large scale we started preparing it in the oven.
What you need
- Sweet potatoes
- Butter
- Golden syrup (a healthier version would be honey or even date honey)
- Ground Salt
Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them into rings. Make sure that the rings are not too thick but also not too thin, maybe 1.5-2 cm thick. The idea is that they would be more or less the same size to help with an even cooking time.
In a pot
Place the raw sweet potatoes in a pot on a medium to high heat. Be careful not to over crowd the pot. Cut your butter into smaller pieces and distribute it amongst the sweet potato pieces. Grind enough salt over the sweet potatoes. Pour your syrup or honey over all the pieces.
Stir through and cover the pot with a lid.
While the sweet potatoes are still hard you can stir it frequently to make sure all the pieces are covered with butter and syrup.
Once they soften you have to be careful not to stir them too much to prevent it from becoming mash. At this point we remove the lid of the pot to allow the syrup to caramelise.
In the oven
Heat your oven to 150 degrees Celsius. Place the raw sweet potatoes in a baking dish, be careful not to over crowd the baking dish. Cut your butter into smaller pieces and distribute it amongst the sweet potato pieces. Grind enough salt over the sweet potatoes. Pour your syrup or honey over all the pieces.
Once the butter and syrup starts to melt remove it from the oven and stir it to ensure that all of the sweet potatoes are coved with the butter and syrup and place it back into the oven.
You can repeat this a few times during the cooking process to make sure that the sweet potatoes remain covered with the butter and sugar. Once they are soft and the syrup should have caramelised and it is ready to serve.
If you see that the syrup is runny, you can pour the syrup into a pot and reduce it on the stove and then pour it over the sweet potatoes again. This usually happens if they were overcrowded and the steam created couldn’t escape.
