How does caramelized garlic slathered over sweet potatoes with copious amounts of butter sound?
Sounds like a delicious brunch to me. My newest colleague, Robin, generously shared his garlic sweet potato recipe with me.
Why it works
I took Robin’s recipe and added our twist by frying the sweet potato strips to get the edges crispy and finishing them off with garlic caramelized in butter. It’s a wonderful way to start Sunday brunch.
Parboiling the sweet potatoes really helps keep them crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.
Alex and I enjoyed the sweet potatoes with strong English breakfast tea.
Ingredients
We used Japanese sweet potatoes for this recipe. Alex claims they are a bit woodier than the sweet potatoes he is used to eating during Thanksgiving. Garnet sweet potatoes are more commonly found in the supermarket and they work excellently for this recipe as well.
Robin's garlic sweet potatoes
Ingredients
Instructions
- Peel the sweet potatoes. Our ceramic potato peeler made this very quick work because it is extremely sharp.
- Boil hot water in a kettle (we like to stagger tasks for time efficiency). While waiting for the water to boil, cut the sweet potatoes into long strips like very thick, chunky fries.
- Pour the boiling water into a big pot in preparation for parboiling the sweet potatoes. Add salt to the water to raise its boiling point. Use a pair of tongs to put the sweet potatoes into the pot. The tongs protect you from splashing boiling water on yourself. Cover and allow to parboil for 6 minutes.
- While the sweet potatoes cook, roughly slice the garlic.
- Once the sweet potatoes are parboiled, drain them. You know the sweet potatoes are ready when you poke them, they break in half. But when you nibble them, they still taste a tad starchy because they're not fully cooked yet.
- Heat the canola oil in a large skillet on high. When the oil begins to shimmer and ripple from the heat (not yet smoking), lay each sweet potato strip side by side in the skillet. Depending on how large your skillet is, you may need to fry the sweet potatoes in more than one batch.
- Fry the sweet potatoes until browned on every side. Flip them frequently to avoid burning!
- When every side is browned, turn the heat down to medium. Remove the sweet potatoes from the pan and place them on a plate with a paper towel to soak up the extra grease.
- Add the garlic to the same skillet that was cooking the sweet potatoes. Melt the butter. Let the garlic brown and caramelize in the pan.
- Turn off the heat once the garlic is brown and caramelized in the butter.
- Remove the paper towel from the sweet potatoes plate. Top the sweet potatoes with the garlic and butter from the pan. Season with salt. Sprinkle paprika for extra flavor.
- Enjoy the sweet potatoes with a mug of English breakfast tea! I think Robin will approve.
