It’s great to be cooking on the weekends again! In a bout of cleaning and clearing the kitchen, my eyes set upon a half bottle of maple syrup that needed to be used up. I thought first of pancakes and waffles but then to sweet potatoes as I’d been wanting to try the combination of sweet and sweet to see if it would work as a savoury (do two sweets making a savoury? Nah…).
What came out of my experiment was this side dish, which we had with chicken last weekend. The sweet potato and the maple do go well together but there’s a bit of lime juice preventing everything from getting too saccharine. I do love pecan nuts so but you could also use walnuts.
This was the recipe I was making when I sliced a bit of the tip of my finger off with a mandoline. Pay attention when using these things, folks! They’re sharp and if you’re not paying attention (and I certainly wasn’t), it’s stupidly easy to slice off something unintentionally. In my case, there was just some bleeding and nothing that a plaster couldn’t sort out but it could have been much worse – mandolines are very useful but do take care!
Sweet Potato, Maple and Pecan Bake
serves 2-3 as a side dish.
2 sweet potatoes
salt and pepper
2.5 tbsps maple syrup
1 lime
a few handfuls of pecans
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Peel the sweet potatoes and then slice into thin rounds – I used a mandoline. Arrange in a suitable baking dish and season with salt and pepper. Combine the maple syrup, the juice of 1 lime and 3 tbsps of water and pour over the potato slices. Cover with foil and place in the oven.
After 45 minutes, take the baking dish out of the oven and peel off the foil. Chop the pecans roughly, scatter on top of the sweet potatoes and continue baking for another 20 minutes. Serve.
Tue, 13 Nov, 2012 at 20:00
look fabulous!!!
Tue, 20 Nov, 2012 at 17:58
Thank you!
Tue, 13 Nov, 2012 at 20:09
Ouch! Know what you mean no massive damage here but… And I think Lakeland does one with a finger guard.
Tue, 20 Nov, 2012 at 17:58
Hehe…yeah, mine has a finger guard too… I now use it religiously.
Tue, 13 Nov, 2012 at 20:19
This looks great! I’ll have to give this a try. Cheers.
Tue, 20 Nov, 2012 at 17:58
Thank you! Hope you like it!
Tue, 13 Nov, 2012 at 20:47
This looks great. Would love to try, will maybe add some fresh herbs to counter the sweetness.
Tue, 20 Nov, 2012 at 17:59
I love the use of the nuts but yes, some herbs would also be good. Can’t ever go wrong with some fresh parsley before serving.
Wed, 14 Nov, 2012 at 00:06
this looks great! sorry to hear about your finger though.
Tue, 20 Nov, 2012 at 18:05
Thank you! The finger has now made a full recovery!
Wed, 14 Nov, 2012 at 09:22
I am very respectful of my mandoline!
I think this needs bacon.
Tue, 20 Nov, 2012 at 18:05
π Bacon would, yes, be a good addition. And now I shall always respect the mandoline!
Thu, 15 Nov, 2012 at 06:38
I was a bit disturbed when you talked about the left over chicken – I thought for a while there you had the maple syrup with the chicken. That would be strange!
Tue, 20 Nov, 2012 at 18:07
That would be pretty weird! π