I love - I LOVE - Valentine’s Day.
It’s not a feverish, sticky love; I’m not here for the pink and the sugar and the obligation. My reverence is, instead, mellow but steady: I champion this day’s energy, its value. After the pomp and circumstance of the holidays that usher in winter, there’s a quietude that settles in - the decorations that jingle and tinkle and glow are packed away, the oven has earned its rest, the kids are (sort of) (sometimes) (thank you, COVID) back in school - and it is in those early new-year weeks that we collectively tend to slowly devolve. We start the year with vigor, but by mid-January we’re again remembering how accurate all of those 2021 think-pieces about “languishing” felt, and by the time early February rolls around, it is The Doldrums. The capitals are not a typo.
But then - here comes Valentine’s Day. And if you hate it, I get it; I do. It’s not that I don’t see or hear you when you point to the consumerism, the dilution, the history, the feelings of obligation, the sense that to engage is to be performative.
I UNDERSTAND. I just don’t CARE.
Because to me, it’s the energy that matters: the kindnesses and thoughtfulness are healing, nurturing micromoments in the macrocosm. In much the way that even one healthy cell can improve the average and overall health of a body, this one day of goodness does can do some heavy-ass lifting, if we let it. And I just don’t see the point in beating poor Valentine’s Day down when we could - clearly - use the helping hand.
This space - Butter. - is a kindness that I share with myself, because I enjoy being here. I’d planned to spend today in it, working on something fun and grand, a holiday surprise for you and a respite from other tasks for me. Alas, a tiny sick kiddo has placed a (cute) chokehold on my day, and the crumbs of free time that I’m left with will go to making some Valentine magic for my kids instead of for myself. (They are here for the pink and the sugar and the obligation. But I’m glad for their joy, and happy to oblige.) Perhaps it’s for the better; this weekend’s issue was a doozy, and it’s true that even on Valentine’s Day there can be such a thing as too much Butter.
I won’t leave you with nothing, however. The recipe that follows is, like my Valentine to you, a humble one, but don’t write it off. It is vegan, gluten-free, crazy easy, precise but not, lengthy but lazy, and completely worth the trouble.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
The Very Best Way To Cook Sweet Potatoes
I know that the contents of that photo might look less than appetizing to the uninitiated: discs of something not immediately identifiable that appear to be totally desiccated and maybe even a little burnt. They are none of those things and are, in fact, the complete opposite: meltingly tender, caramel-sticky, and delightfully crisp at the edges. They are also unbelievably sweet; they are vegetable convinced to play the part of candy, of crème brulée. Without any added sugar.
I refuse to make you sit through a science class today, but trust that this method is not without a scientific backbone. The temperature and the cut are both intentional, as they maximize two things: surface area, to increase the amount of water that gets roasted away, which then concentrates flavor and sugar; and the amount of time the sweet potatoes spend at the ideal temperature needed for their enzymes to convert starches into delicious, delicious maltose.
These are great hot, cold, or at room temperature; you can add them to grain salads, to burritos and tacos, to rice bowls, top them with yogurt and nuts for breakfast, whatever you want. And, of course, you can just eat them on their own - they are so tasty as to almost feel like an indulgence. A vegetal one, but a treat nonetheless. There is almost always a container of them in our fridge, and it gets replenished every 2-3 days. A staple. A keeper.
Ingredients
Because this is more method than recipe, I won’t include quantities; you do you.
sweet potatoes
salt - coarse or fine grain, whatever you prefer
neutral cooking oil
Method
Peel sweet potatoes and trim away about 1/2” of each pointy, fibrous end.
Slice crosswise into thick discs - between 1/2” and 1”. You don’t need to be precise - just try to be consistent.
Stack two sheet pans one on top of another. (See note at the bottom.) Line the top pan with parchment, and trim to fit. Place all of the sweet potato discs onto the parchment paper.
Drizzle sweet potatoes with a generous amount of cooking oil (I use avocado or olive oil) and season well with salt.
Don’t just toss the discs: really get in there with your hands and give each one a tiny rub-down. You want the entire disc to get a salty gloss; this keeps the surfaces from getting dried out and leathery, which will trap flavorless water inside the sweet potatoes.
Arrange the discs in a single layer on your sheet pan. If they overlap a little bit, that’s ok - they’re going to shrink significantly (the ones in my photo were all touching when they started their journey).
Pop them into a 350F oven (if you preheated it, great, and if you forgot, it’s totally fine - put them in cold). If you have a convection oven, turn the fan off.
You’re going to roast these for almost two hours, and maybe even longer. I know it’s not quick, but it’s mostly hands-off. After the first 45 minutes, go in and do three things: flip all of the discs over with tongs or a spatula; shuffle the discs around a bit if the ones in the center are developing less color than the one at the edges; and rotate your pan 180 degrees before returning it to the oven. Cook for another 45 minutes and then repeat all three steps.
If you have enough sheet pans, you can do two trays of potatoes; instead of doing one in the middle rack, set your shelves in the top and bottom thirds of your oven, and every time you flip the potatoes and turn the pans, switch shelves as well. Expect them to take at least 45 minutes longer (which means an additional flip & turn, as well).At 90 minutes, you should start to see little pools of sticky sugary juices forming on the tops of the sweet potatoes, and the edges beginning to get crispy and browned. They also should have shrunk in size quite a bit. Check them every 15 minutes, turning the pan and the potatoes again if you’d like, until it reaches your desired stage of caramelization - you can cook them to really deep and dark and sticky, if you’d want. I generally take it to about 1.75 hours, and then turn off the oven and leave the pan in there to cool; they get a nice meaty texture once they’ve cooled, and I like them best at room temp anyway. Eat as you like. Will keep in the fridge for about 5 days.
Enjoy. xo.
The only note: I get the best results when I make these on my USA Pan (brand) sheet pans. They’re corrugated (you can see what I mean in the photo), and the air flow helps the discs to cook evenly and keeps the hot pan from burning the sweet potato before it is thoroughly roasted. If you have these pans, or ones with a similar texture, you can SKIP the parchment and the double-pan method; bake them right on your sheet, as pictured. I assumed that most people DON’T have a corrugated sheet pan, hence the instructions as written; the parchment and the layered pans will create an air buffer that will keep your sweets from burning.