I’ve Perfected the Thanksgiving Sweet Potato Casserole | Eric Kim | NYT Cooking

Get the FREE recipe: https://nyti.ms/3XpQnh7
See more of our best Thanksgiving recipes: https://nyti.ms/4on6CYe

After plenty of trial and error, Eric has come up with his ideal version of the Thanksgiving casserole with a few smart, simple tricks. First, the potatoes are baked whole to concentrate their flavor and reduce their moisture for a fluffy mash seasoned with savory bay leaves and black pepper. Then the dish is topped with marshmallows, which Eric says aren’t a retro quirk but a necessary ingredient: Halved and toasted under the broiler, they create a crackly thin, turtle-shelled top that complements the potatoes and provides most of the dish’s sweetness. A handful of pecans scattered atop the marshmallows lends a nice crunch.

Read more here: https://nyti.ms/43UPW24

——————————————

Download the Cooking app for daily dinner picks, helpful tools, and even more videos: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nyt-cooking/id911422904

VISIT NYT COOKING: https://cooking.nytimes.com/

SUBSCRIBE to NYT COOKING: https://nyti.ms/3FfKmfb
A paid subscription gets you full access to our recipes, daily inspiration and a digital Recipe Box.

YOUTUBE: https://bit.ly/2MrEFxh

INSTAGRAM: http://bit.ly/2DqJMuD
FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/2MrTjEC
PINTEREST: http://bit.ly/2W44xng

About NYT Cooking:
All the food that’s fit to eat (yes, it’s an official New York Times production).

“I’ve realized that sweet
potato casserole’s really hard to say fast. Sweet potato casserole,
sweet potato casserole, sweet potato casserole. By now is we just sort of
say swee-poato casserole. Because I can’t say sweet
potato casserole that slowly for the whole video, because
then it’ll be too long. Hey, it’s Eric Kim. I’m a food columnist for the
‘New York Times.’ And I am so excited because I’ve been
thinking about this sweet potato casserole for
the last four years. Sweet potato casserole
is a very special item on my family’s Thanksgiving
table because it’s my mother’s favorite dish. She loves it because it’s
an excuse to have dessert [CHUCKLES]: for dinner. When I was tasting the
final iteration of this, I knew that it was
right because when I took a bite of it,
I did a little dance. The flavor combination
of bay leaf, and sweet potato,
and marshmallow signaled something different. It made my brain sort of short
circuit in a really good way. I think the joy of developing
a Thanksgiving recipe is teaching people that you don’t
need too many ingredients to make a really
stellar, thoughtful dish. Earlier this month, Wiz and
I baked through some sweet potato casseroles that I
thought were interesting, and I wanted to learn from to
fine tune what my contribution to this pantheon of sweet
potato casserole is.” “Ooh.” “Ooh, look at that fudginess. Look how orange that is. I’m going to try to maximize
the sweet potato flavor by not masking it too much.” “Do you want it to
be, like, the hero.” “Kind of. But I also want the
marshmallow to shine. So –” [WIZ CHUCKLES] “During our testing day, we
learned a lot about baked sweet potatoes and how
everyone kind of does it a little differently. We found that the foil wrapped
ones, they were kind of, like, waterlogged. They were a little
soggy, right? They basically
had been steaming, steaming in their own juices. I really enjoyed the ones
that were just baked naked. Yeah, they’re so soft now. Perfect. I felt that the moisture
really came out. And you end up
with a sweet potato that is lusciously
tender on the inside. But the moistures
had time to come out, which means that you get a
concentrated sweet potato flavor. So many of the
recipes we tested that day, they called
for an hour bake time or maybe, like, an hour 15. I think, sometimes, a
sweet potato really needs an hour and a half. We also tested
with canned yams because I personally wanted
to just taste my childhood. It’s not as bad as
I thought it’d be.” “Does it taste like
your childhood of –” “Yeah. It tastes like
my childhood yams. There are a few ways
you can bake them. I just want you to know, you
will see, like, a bubble, like, a syrupy sugar bubble
on one or two or all of them start to, like, volcano out. That means that the
potato’s really cooking. And sweet potatoes have
natural sugar in them. This is, like, sugar
that’s good for you. [LAUGHS] For an hour to an
hour and a half, don’t be afraid of
the hour and a half. You really want this to get
super, super melty and cooked down. And now we can just pretend
that time has lapsed. And we’re going
to the cream now? Yeah. So this next step is where a
lot of the flavor comes in. It’s really weird how
just a half cup of cream, just this baby — baby amount of cream, will
just absolutely perfume the heck out of this thing. Just take a really
small saucepan. I’m getting a 1/2
cup of this cream. It is, in my opinion, really
important to get fresh Bay leaves. I was just really struck
by how much flavor can come out of
these little things when you cream steep them. But if you can’t find
them, dried totally works. Freshly ground black pepper
is really important here. So the black pepper
and Bay leaves give the flavor
background for this dish just a decidedly
savory quality. We’re going to heat
this over medium. So you actually don’t
want to boil the cream. What you are
looking for is just bubbles around the
edge of the pot. And then, when that happens,
I like to shake the pot. And then if a wisp of steam
comes up, then I’m, like, O.K., we’re good. What do Bay leaves taste like? I think of it as
adding a woodsy, savory depth to
whatever you’re cooking. Like, F word. That smells so good. There are some recipes we
tested where we used sage, brown, with the
butter in the pan.” “Ooh.” “It’s Thanksgiving.” “It does smell
like Thanksgiving.” “When I was tasting the
final iteration of this, it turned out that Bay leaf
and sweet potato [CHUCKLES]: and marshmallow is
this phenomenal, like, ambrosial –” [DING SOUND] “– flavor combination. See that smoke? We’re done. Take it off the heat. And now it’s like
you’re making tea. You’re just letting
it kind of, like, kind of infuse the cream with
the black pepper and Bay leaf flavor. These are lovely
and really tender. You know they’re done
because as they cool, the flesh sort of does
come away from the shell. And so that’s what’s
happened here. Ooh, it’s so candied
and beautifully roasted, that the sugars have hardened. But that shows you the magic
of a sweet potato, right? I mean, it’s so beautiful. They’re pretty hot right now. [LAUGHS]: So you
could wear gloves, or you could wait
for it to cool. But if you’ve roasted them,
they really just slip out of their shells, like that. So this is the step where
you can really appreciate the potato for what it is. People say that Thanksgiving’s
being grateful for the people around you, but I think
it’s about being grateful for the vegetables
and the food. [CHUCKLES]: Just kidding. Also the people, but
mostly the vegetables and the farmers. [LAUGHS] Sweet potato casserole
as we know it with the marshmallow topping,
it came to us from the North, believe it or not. Janet McKenzie Hill
created this dish for a marshmallow company
in 1917 in New England. And actually, when it came
to the South, what happened was a lot of people replaced
the marshmallows with nuts because they thought the
marshmallow was crazy. But if the skin
peels away this well, then that’s how you
know you’re good. So this is when you’re
adding the cream. I’m actually just going
to dump it all in. And I’ll fish out
the Bay leaves later. Because I want all that
Black pepper in there too. So while the
potatoes still warm, I’m going to add the butter. The butter’s at
room temperature. I don’t melt it. I get the point
of melted butter. I get the point
of brown butter. But I think it can
lend greasiness. It’s kind of making it melt
with the heat naturally. And then you end up with
a texture that just — it doesn’t grease
up your mouth. So a whole teaspoon
of coarse kosher salt. So I’m actually going to
only start with 1 tablespoon of brown sugar. Because I’m really just trying
to season the sweet potatoes to taste. And depending on how much
the potato has concentrated in flavor in the
oven during its bake, depending on the
type of sweet potato, depending on how long it’s
been sitting on the shelf, turning its starches to sugar,
this is my base seasoning. And I’m going to adjust with
a little more sugar if I want, a little more salt and pepper. But before we
whisk in the eggs, we’re going to
finalize the seasoning. So this step is
important, just to taste. I’m going to add a
little more brown sugar. I don’t need too much. Because I want the black
pepper to really come out, I’m going to add some more,
but not enough to ruin this orange color. There are some
recipes we tested. They didn’t call for eggs. And they just tasted like a
plopped mashed potato that’s in a casserole
dish for no reason. If you add some
eggs to it, it helps the filling extend and
souffle a little bit. It just kind of gives it
more body, and richness, and an interesting quality
that I think is really nice. But this sweet
potato casserole made me really excited. It was one of those things
where after the first test, it was so good, but
I had to fly back to New York the next day. So I left it with my brother. Let me just read
his text, actually. ‘Damn, the sweet potato
casserole’s really good. Haha. I’ve been killing
it.’ [LAUGHS]: And then he posted a picture. That’s really cleanly eaten. So actually, to
this point, this is why we greased the pan. [LAUGHS] I’m going to keep whisking. I’m kind of trying to
add a little bit of air, but not that much. See how it’s already,
like, fluffier? Can you tell? The secret ingredient to
sweet potato casserole is air. Sorry. [LAUGHS]: That’s so
fluffy and so orange. Lovely, right?” “Yeah.” “The eggs add lift. Greasing the pan is one of
my least favorite things to do ever. The warmth of your hand will
also help it kind of spread Buttering the
dish kind of helps the mixture be separate
from the pan a little bit. And it’s nice for
when you’re scooping. Should I do this, like,
in the food media way, where I’m doing it a very
unnaturally and the way my body doesn’t contort? But just loop it in. I love using words like gloop
and gunge to describe food. And my editor’s always like,
that doesn’t sound appetizing. [LAUGHS] And I’m like, hey,
life’s not perfect. I just want you to use the
smallest, cutest casserole dish you have. As much as I love this dish,
I don’t need that much of it. I don’t think anyone
needs that much of it. Well, with that said, maybe
you’ll be like my brother and just kill the whole
thing by yourself. A lot of recipes call
for the mini ones. I did enjoy the recipes
that called for that. However, for
visual purposes, I like what the large
marshmallow does. If I were to just place
these marshmallows on top, it’d be way too much
marshmallow for me, personally. So I’m just cutting
them in half. You need about, like,
20 for a 2-quart dish. It’s funny, I usually hate
doing stuff like this. But this is very satisfying. This is like art. [LAUGHS]: Because you
get a really cool design. It’s striking. It’s nice. It’s Thanksgiving. You want to show
off a little bit. Instead of just doing it
all across like this — it’s boring — tilt the pan
and kind of do it diagonally. So fit one into the corner. You do want to leave a
little space between each. After we bake this
off, the marshmallows are going to kind of expand. They’re going to
look really cool. They’re going to
brown a little bit. We’re going to broil
it at the very end, just to make sure they’re
truly toasty and crispy. We want a very thin, elegant
layer of marshmallow. I like respecting
the marshmallow. This is American history
we’re talking about here. I’m from Georgia. So I thought it’d be nice to
have some pecans in there. Because then you have — you
have the best of both worlds, North and South. And so these are just salted
roasted packaged pecans. I’m kind of dropping them in
the naked spots, so, like, the crevices. As this bakes, the pecans
will also further brown and get really crispy. And I like this because you
look at it, and you’re like, this is sweet
potato casserole. But it’s just a little cuter. I don’t know, people should
have fun with their food. If you wanted to prep
this the day before, you can actually just
cover it at this step. So this is one dish done. And then you’ll put
it in the fridge. And then you can, like,
feel smug about it. But we’re going to
bake it off now. It’s been 20 minutes. And I’m happy with this. You can see it’s starting
to brown a little bit. And the sweet
potato part here is bubbling at the edges,
which is never a bad sign. But now, I’m going to move
it to the top rack under the broiler. But this is really the best
way to get that toasted marshmallow effect, where
it’s like a shellac of crispy marshmallow on top and,
like, gooey underbelly. As soon as you see
a wisp of smoke, that’s when you pull it out. It’ll be anywhere from, like,
30 seconds to 3 minutes. It depends on your oven. You could use a
blowtorch, if you wanted. It’s working. You see that smoke? It’s done. Take it out. Look at that beauty,
perfect little baby. So I’m really excited
because the satisfying visual of a sweet potato casserole
is that the casserole sort of looks like it’s mimicking
the colors of a sweet potato. And it’s just the perfect
amount of marshmallow. It’s, like, the perfect layer. It’s not too much. And then I’m going to get
a pecan because that’s the perfect bite. Mm. I don’t know if
you caught that, but there were two types of
crunch [CHUCKLES]: in this. It feels like the marshmallow
kind of shattering in my mouth.” [CRUNCH] “Cool, right? But then the nut is also
crunchy, but a different kind. It’s like a harder crunch.” [CRUNCH] “As you’re eating this, you
appreciate the savoriness of the potato, scent of Bay
leaf, lots of black pepper. Also, the toasting
of the marshmallow just makes it less sweet. It adds a bitterness,
which is important. I was inspired by recipes that
made the marshmallows have a purpose, you know? I like this idea that the
marshmallow is the thing that adds a little bit of the
sugar so that the sweet potato flavor can come out. When I do these
Thanksgiving recipes, it’s nice to have a day where
you’re kind of cooking through past iterations. I like seeing where
other people’s brains go. It just shows you the variety
that could be sweet potato casserole.” “Wow.” “Mm-hmm.” “I want it to provide a
version that made you rethink the casserole, help you to
really appreciate the dish for what it is. You can find this recipe in
many more Thanksgiving recipes at nytcooking.com. Enjoy. Happy Thanksgiving.” “It’s the marshmallow.” “[GASPS]: Ooh.” [WOMAN LAUGHS] “That’s so cute.” “Mm.”
“This is great.” “The marshmallow’s
fun, right?” “Delicious.” “It stays crispy too.”