This sweet potato could feed a family of four. For a week. And despite its appearance, no steroids or growth hormones were used. It came from my friend Brett’s farm – Even’ Star – in Southern Maryland; who, by the way, was just featured yesterday in an article in the Washington Post.
I was cooking dinner a few weeks ago for me and a friend. After cubing just a quarter of it, I knew I there would be way more potatoes than we could eat. And with a fear of the remainder languishing in the ‘frigde until I got around to cooking it, I decided to experiment with freezing.
Sweet potatoes sometimes oxidize. Not as much as apples or russet potatoes, but they get enough black streaking that I thought freezing them in the raw form would not be a good idea. Instead, I par-boiled the cubes in salted water for 2 minutes, just enough to destroy whatever oxidizing components there might be.
I laid the par cooked cubes on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and popped the whole thing in the freezer.
A few weeks later, I used the frozen sweets to make sweet potato raviolis. Everyone loved them!
Because I pureed the sweets, there were no issues with texture. I still want to experiment – and try roasting the pre-frozen cubes to see if they develop a crust or if they just fall apart.
As Brett says, “Very large sweet potatoes are unjustly scorned by novices, but old-time Southern cooks treasure the mammoths for ease of use. They also know that a slowly grown but big sweet potato is more flavorful than a typical conventionally grown, smaller sweet potato whose growth was rushed and babied with agricultural chemicals.”
So don’t be shy about the very large sweet potatoes. Know that whatever you can’t use on the first day can be frozen for a later preparation.
That’s a great idea, and the raviolis look fantastic. I have frozen cooked puree, and then used it in soups in the past.
The ravioli looks delicious. How did you serve them?
Lydia – I served them with garlic sauteed broccoli raab and a port reduction with dried cherries. They disappeared to quickly to snap a photo.
You didn’t add lemon or anything like that? Just peel, cube and par boil in salted water? I was wondering. I have never froze sweet potatoes. Squash yes but not the potatoes.