How to grow and cook sweet potatoes

A gardener and a chef team up with advice on growing and serving sweet potatoes, including a recipe for a delicious sweet potato cake.

When a reader left a comment wondering when we would be doing something sweet, Linda and I were ready with the sweetest Southern fall crop, sweet potatoes.
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You grow sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) from rooted cuttings, called slips, planted into warm garden soil (May in South Carolina, where we live). Their growing requires 90 to 150 days to mature, depending on type.

These tropical vegetables love the heat and humidity of Southern summers, but must come out of the ground before any frost hits the garden. When the vines turn yellow, it is time to dig. If frost is forecast, dig them even if the plants are still green. Even a light frost will travel down the stem and damage the swollen roots we know as sweet potatoes.

Harvesting and curing

Cut the vines, then carefully dig the roots, which bruise quite easily, with a spading fork, gently lifting the soil from deep underneath the plants.

The next activity will be to get them to “sweeten.” Sweet potatoes come out of the ground starchy. They need high heat and humidity to reach their full sweet potential. The longer you can store them at 85 degrees F. and 90 per cent humidity (up to two weeks), the sweeter they will become. If summer has turned to late fall before your harvest, try curing the sweet potatoes in the kitchen, usually the warmest and most humid room in the house.

Once the sweet potatoes are dried and cured, they can be stored at warm temperatures, anything above 50 degrees F. Six to eight weeks of storage will improve their sugar content and sweetness.

Colder storage will harden the core of the sweet potato and ruin the taste. Never, ever put raw sweet potatoes into the refrigerator. Cook them first. To keep them for any length of time, wash them, boil or bake them, then after draining, package them with their skins intact and freeze or refrigerate them.

You won’t have to worry about storage if you try Linda’s …

Unusual sweet potato cake

A lemon-flavored sweet potato pone that my (Linda’s) father loved, inspired this very moist and sweet cake with a touch of lemon flavoring. The sweet potato pone was made by an elderly woman who knew and cooked by the old “foodways” (that is, cooking the old way, preserving the past) at a little cafe in southwest Alabama.

Her name has slipped my mind over the years, but the thought of her luscious sweet potatoes has not.

This cake [see second photo above; click on the arrow at the right base of the first photo] has no cinnamon, no spices, but is very moist and delicious with a nice contrast in flavors from the lemon extract and the lemon-flavored yogurt.

I like my cake sweet, and this is, sweet and Southern, just as you would expect from a sweet potato cake.

Simple Cooking: How to Roast Perfect Sweet Potatoes

Oh joy, it’s tuber time at the farmers’ markets. We know you’ve been waiting for this. You probably made a tuber countdown calendar, didn’t you? Sweet potatoes are popping up everywhere, and now is the perfect time to grab a few and practice some different techniques of cooking them before Thanksgiving rolls around. Sweet potatoes are good accompaniments to most fall dinners. Try our recipe for spicy roasted sweet potatoes as an alternative to the mashed or sugared, goopy versions. This side dish goes well with savory meats and fish. And please, hold the marshmallows!

Chicagoist’s Spicy Roasted Sweet Potatoes (Serves 4 as a side dish)
2 medium-sized sweet potatoes
2 ½ Tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
1-2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (depending on your heat tolerance)

Instructions

First, step away from the peeler. The skins of sweet potatoes are magical, and we’ll give a nice slap to the face to anyone who says otherwise. Scrub and rinse the sweet potatoes, and dry with a paper towel.

Preheat the oven to 375.

Cut the potato into one-inch slices, then each slice into 9 cubes (see the picture). This should ensure like-sized sweet potato pieces for even roasting. Put all the cubes into a big bowl.

Drizzle olive oil over the sweet potatoes. Add the salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. Stir to coat. Make sure all the potatoes get coated – if necessary, add a little extra olive oil.

Turn out the sweet potato pieces onto a greased baking sheet. Bake at 375 for about 40 minutes, flipping with a spatula after 30 minutes. We say “about” because sweet potatoes can easily decide to burn; stay by the oven for the last 20 minutes and check on them obsessively. Like you’re a sweet potato helicopter parent. The final cooking time will depend greatly on the size of your cubes and the efficiency of your oven.

So how do you tell when they are done? The edges should be golden brown, but you can’t go on sight alone. If you’re unsure, just eat a piece. That should tell you if your sweet potatoes need a few more minutes, or if they’re ready for dinner. Each piece of roasted potato should have a crispy edge and a buttery, soft interior.
When your little darlings are ready, serve in a warmed dish right away.

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