How to Cook Loaded Sweet Potatoes
There are a few different ways to whip up flavorful roasted sweet potatoes, but the one that’s gone viral on TikTok involves freezing the potatoes before baking them. Then, garnish them with some of your favorite spices, condiments, and other tasty finishing touches. Here are the steps.
Freeze the Potatoes First
According to TikTok user Chaheti Bansal, the key to making fluffy potatoes starts with a frozen spud. Commonly eaten on cold winter days in China, street vendors typically roast the nearly frozen potatoes in a large iron drum until they are tender and caramelized. New York City-based chef Lucas Sin points out in his Instagram Story highlights that the Chinese cooking technique works because “freezing crystallizes the water inside the sweet potato without puncturing the skin, in effect macerating the flesh inside out…” Then the “high temp roasting caramelizes the sugars, but the skin protects the sugars from burning.”
Bake the in a Very Hot Oven
To mimic the results of coal-roasted, street-style potatoes, Bansal bakes the cold potatoes in a piping hot oven set at 450 F. She places the root vegetable on a parchment-lined baking sheet and roasts the potatoes for 45 to 60 minutes. “Bake it until the burnt sugar oozes out, and you get this really fluffy texture and smoky flavor,” she advises. The exterior should begin to caramelize, with the crystalized sugar secreting from the cracks that form outside the sweet potato as it roasts. Apparently, exposure to high heat intensifies the sweetness. Bansal then cuts the potato lengthwise for a bun-like presentation and uses the back of a spoon to create a nest-like crevice to prepare the potato for some delicious toppings.
Personalize With Some Finishing Touches
For a well-balanced breakfast, Bansal cracks an egg into the “nest” of the potato. She then returns the filled spuds to the oven and bakes them until the whites of the eggs are set and cooked. To add a signature flavorful touch, Bansal then tempers spices, including mustard and cumin seeds, in piping hot ghee—aka clarified butter. This Indian cooking technique is known as tadka. Once the mustard seeds begin to pop and the cumin seeds start to dance around the pan, releasing their aromatic essential oils, Bansal adds some red chili flakes to the mixture for a little heat. She then finishes off the egg-topped sweet potatoes with a generous spoonful of the flavor-infused ghee and garnishes the dish with salt and freshly cracked pepper. If you’re out of sweet potatoes, good ol’ Idaho potatoes should work with this recipe as well.
