I wish I had thought of this recipe, but I didn’t. I was shown this sweet potato method by a nice guy named Chef Kurt Fleischfresser one day while we were at the Culinary Kitchen in Oklahoma City filming a piece for NewsOK. By ‘we’ I mean several of my foodie buddies and the boyfriend. I can’t quite remember what the theme of the day was (several of those segments were taped over the course of a few months), but Chef Kurt rolled in with his usual swagger and dropped these potatoes into my world and my world was never the same.
They are great to make and reheat later. They are great to make and take to a party. They are great to make in advance and pop into the oven the moment you are home from work, provided you’ve got an hour or so of other things to do before they finish.
They are HORRIBLE at allowing you to patiently wait for dinner because the smell of them baking and bubbling and roasting in your oven is almost unbearable. I advise popping them in the oven and going for a 50 minute walk.
Slice your potatoes in half lengthwise with a heavy, sharp knife. Slice up an onion. I use a mandolin but you certainly don’t have to.
Grab a your chiles and toss them onto a hot surface. This is my small cast iron griddle pan, mostly chosen because I am vain and cast iron = street cred. You aren’t cooking them, you’re just warming them up so they’ll be pliable enough to tear apart.
Cover a sweet potato half in onion. Then cover it in halves of the ancho. Or strips of the ancho. Whatever you configure for your own pretty self.
Then, oh so carefully, put the other potato half on the top and wrap the whole thing in bacon. Here you see two strips of thick-cut bacon. You could use thin just as easily. It matters not.
Wrap the whole thing tightly in foil and place them all on a cookie sheet. (Which I forgot to take a photo of.) Pop them into a 400 degree oven for as long as it takes for them to be baked. These monsters took over an hour. You can save time and increase the bacon to potato ratio if you have smaller sweet potatoes.
The results are a moist and tender sweet potato that is stuffed with soft onions, a earthy and not-too-spicy ancho chile. The potato skin (where so many vitamins lurk) is fork tender and melded with bacon, so it’s good and good for you.
Do you have any similar set-it-and-forget-it recipes you want to share?
Side note: I’m testing a new plug in. While you’re sharing your kitchen secrets, tell me what you think of the plug in or if you have a better suggestion. I’m still figuring things out over here. 🙂
- 4 sweet potatoes, cut in half lengthwise
- 8 strips of bacon
- 1 white onion, sliced
- 3 to 4 dried ancho chiles, warmed and broken open
- Cut the sweet potatoes in half lengthwise. Cover a potato half with a layer of onion slice (will be 2-3 slices). Layer ancho onto the onion and top with the other half of the potato. Wrap each potato with bacon then wrap tightly in aluminum foil. Place on a cookie sheet and bake for an hour. Longer for huge potatoes, less for petitie potatoes.
- You can tell when a potato is done when you squeeze it. If it's got give, it's done. If it still seems kind of tough, check again in 15 minutes. Please use a pot holder. 😉
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