Southern
Style Sweet Potato Casserole
My
version of a southern favorite…sweet potato casserole
Serves 6
to 8 (One
large pie)
My secret ingredient (passed down from my mom) is a little pure
maple syrup in the whipped yams (orange sweet potatoes). The
crunchy pecan topping creates a textured treat for your taste buds.
If you really want to do it like they do down South
y’all…top a warm slice of pie off with some vanilla ice-cream, warm caramel
sauce and a generous sprinkle of cinnamon!
Ingredients:
Whipped
Sweet Potatoes:
- 3 cups mashed yams
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ¾ cup of milk
- ¼ cup of pure maple syrup
- ¼ cup melted butter
Topping:
- 1 ¼ cup brown sugar
- ¾ cup flour
- ¾ cup melted butter
- 2 ½ cup chopped pecans
Preparation:
- Lightly brush yams with extra virgin olive oil. Bake at 400°F for 45 minutes to an hour an 15 minutes (depending on their size).
- After yams have baked and cooled slightly, peel the outer skin away.
- Combine first 7 ingredients. Pour into a buttered 1 1/2 to 2-quart casserole dish.
- Mix remaining ingredients together and sprinkle over top.
- Bake at 350° for 30 to 40 minutes, until hot and browned.
- Allow
to cool before serving.
http://www.worldwidecultureswap.com/
Yum! This reminds me of family dinners at my aunt's house! Found you on the Worldwide Culture Swap's June Culture Swapper.
ReplyDeleteLooks delicious!
ReplyDeleteIs a yam the same as a sweet potato? I don't think I've ever seen one here :)
Thank you so much for sharing this with me at www.worldwidecultureswap.com - I'm really looking forward to seeing what you get up to this month.
Rachael
x
Hi Rachael...I just added a picture of the sweet potatoes I would use in this recipe. Also, see my reply below for additional explanation.
DeleteThat's a great question Rachael! The yam and sweet potato are actually different...though we tend to use the names interchangeably. The excerpts below will explain how this name problem began historically. In the US, we tend to use the orange tuber vegetable that I think is actually a sweet potato for this recipe, but people still call them yams.
ReplyDeleteHere's an excerpt that I found online about the yam vs. the sweet potato:
Yams
Yams are closely related to lilies and grasses. Native to Africa and Asia, yams vary in size from that of a small potato to a record 130 pounds (as of 1999). There are over 600 varieties of yams and 95% of these crops are grown in Africa. Compared to sweet potatoes, yams are starchier and drier.
Sweet Potatoes
The many varieties of sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) are members of the morning glory family, Convolvulacea. The skin color can range from white to yellow, red, purple or brown. The flesh also ranges in color from white to yellow, orange, or orange-red. Sweet potato varieties are classified as either ‘firm’ or ‘soft’. When cooked, those in the ‘firm’ category remain firm, while ‘soft’ varieties become soft and moist. It is the ‘soft’ varieties that are often labeled as yams in the United States.
Why the confusion?
In the United States, firm varieties of sweet potatoes were produced before soft varieties. When soft varieties were first grown commercially, there was a need to differentiate between the two. African slaves had already been calling the ‘soft’ sweet potatoes ‘yams’ because they resembled the yams in Africa. Thus, ‘soft’ sweet potatoes were referred to as ‘yams’ to distinguish them from the ‘firm’ varieties.
Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires labels with the term ‘yam’ to be accompanied by the term ‘sweet potato.’ Unless you specifically search for yams, which are usually found in an international market, you are probably eating sweet potatoes!
(Source: http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/sweetpotato.html)
This second source explains a little more:
Yam or sweet potato, what in the world is it? Many people use these terms interchangeably both in conversation and in cooking, but they are really two different vegetables.
Sweet Potatoes
Popular in the American South, these yellow or orange tubers are elongated with ends that taper to a point and are of two dominant types. The paler-skinned sweet potato has a thin, light yellow skin with pale yellow flesh which is not sweet and has a dry, crumbly texture similar to a white baking potato. The darker-skinned variety (which is most often called "yam" in error) has a thicker, dark orange to reddish skin with a vivid orange, sweet flesh and a moist texture.
Current popular sweet potato varieties include Goldrush, Georgia Red, Centennial, Puerto Rico, New Jersey, and Velvet.
Yams
The true yam is the tuber of a tropical vine (Dioscorea batatas) and is not even distantly related to the sweet potato.
Slowly becoming more common in US markets, the yam is a popular vegetable in Latin American and Caribbean markets, with over 150 varieties available worldwide.
Generally sweeter than than the sweet potato, this tuber can grow over seven feet in length.
The word yam comes from African words njam, nyami, or djambi, meaning "to eat," and was first recorded in America in 1676.
The yam tuber has a brown or black skin which resembles the bark of a tree and off-white, purple or red flesh, depending on the variety. They are at home growing in tropical climates, primarily in South America, Africa, and the Caribbean.
Yams contain more natural sugar than sweet potatoes and have a higher moisture content. They are also marketed by their Spanish names, boniato and Ãtame. (Source: http://homecooking.about.com/od/howtocookvegetables/a/sweetpotatodiff.htm)