Sweet Potato Gratin
Sweet potatoes layered with a buttery sugary cinnamony saucy sauce and topped with toasted marshmallows. It's the way all vegetables wish they could die.
Servings 8 (or 2, depending on if you want to share)
Ingredients
- 5 ea - Sweet Potatoes
- 1 cup - Pecans, coarsely chopped (optional)
- .5 cup - Dark Brown Sugar
- 2 tsp - Ground Ginger
- 2 tsp - Ground Cinnamon
- pinch - Nutmeg
- 4 Tbsp - Unsalted Butter
- 2 cups - Miniature Marshmallows
Instructions
- Get a pot of cold water and put the sweet potatoes in there. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer until the potatoes are tender. Should be about 20 minutes.
- Drain the potatoes and put them in an ice bath. When cooled, the skins should be peelable. Peel all the skins and set potatoes aside.
- In a small bowl, blend together the pecans, brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and butter, using your fingers.
- Heat oven to 450 and butter a baking dish. While oven is heating, slice the sweet potatoes about 1/4 inch thick.
- Layer the bottom of the dish with a third of the sweet potatoes, and dab a third of the awesome mixture on top. Repeat with the remaining potatoes and mixture till you run out.
- Cover with foil, and bake for about 40 minutes.
- Remove from oven and turn it up to broil. Remove the foil and try hard not to pass out from the overwhelmingly amazing smell. Top the gratin with marshmallows and heat it, uncovered, until browned. About a minute.
Notes
- The wife likes to use a 9x13 inch baking dish. It leaves you with about 2 layers of sweet potatoes. If you go down to a square baking dish - 8 or 9 inches or so - you'll get a nice, thick gratin. It won't last as long though.
- I mean, let's be honest. The 9x13 ain't gonna last too long either, know what I'm sayin'?
- Pecans are totally optional. Sadly, thanks to the devil of a nut allergy in this house, we stopped putting them in the dish. Honestly though, that crunch you get from the pecans puts it over the top. It's soooooooooooo amazing, I used to beg for extra pecans because, damn. I'm a sucker for the varying textures.
- Speaking of extra, you can put extra cinnamon, ginger, and/or nutmeg. I won't judge you.
- What? Extra marshmallows too? Yolo, bro.
- For some reason, the mixture has been coming out more of a paste that you dab on. Before (I think back when pecans used to be used in this house), it was more of a mixture you can sprinkle on. You won't go wrong either way, just don't freak out if it's sprinkle..able.
