Sweet potatoes for your plate,SFlbsoup bowl and bread basket, too

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Sweet Potato Chowder

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Versatile.

Nutritious.

Sweet!

The versatile sweet potato can show up from soup to nuts — or at least in a nutty dessert — during your Thanksgiving meal.

For the soup, elegant Sweet Potato Chowder is one of chef Eric Kelly’s signature dishes.

Instead of traditional biscuits, try Sweet Potato Biscuits.

A Sweet Potato Puff is a fluffy, showy side dish.

Although the sweet potato is used in many similar ways to “regular” potatoes, it isn’t a potato at all — it belongs to a different botanical family.

And although it’s often called a yam, especially in the South, true yams are botanically distinct.

Microwaving is an easy shortcut if you want to shorten the cooking time for whole sweet potatoes, but you may find that baking them results in better caramelization and sweetness.

In either case, cook until a syrupy liquid starts to ooze from under the skin.

And don’t limit your use of sweet potatoes to the holiday season.

All year round, they’re remarkably nutritious, high in vitamin C and extremely high in vitamin A.

They’re also antioxidant-rich, a good source of fiber and have anti-inflammatory and blood-sugar-regulating properties.

SWEET POTATO CHOWDER

Yield: 8 servings

4cups chicken stock

3slices bacon, preferably applewood-smoked

2tablespoons unsalted butter

1cup diced yellow onion

1cup diced green bell pepper

1/2cup diced celery

2cloves garlic, minced

1/4cup all-purpose flour

5cups half-and-half

2cups peeled and diced sweet potatoes

1/2cup sliced green onions

11/2cups roasted corn kernels

Kosher salt

Freshly cracked black pepper

Creme fra Æche, for garnish

Bring stock to a boil over high heat; boil until reduced to about 1 cup. Set aside.

While stock is reducing, cook bacon in a soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat until deep brown. Remove the bacon from the pot and let cool. Chop into 1/2-inch pieces and set aside.

Add butter to the bacon fat. When butter melts, add onion, green pepper and celery; cook over medium heat for 5 to 6 minutes, stirring often. Add garlic; cook until aromatic, about 2 minutes.

Dust the cooked vegetables with flour and continue to cook, stirring constantly, for 4 to 5 minutes. Whisk in half-and-half and reduced chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

Add sweet potatoes and simmer until tender.

Pour half of the soup into a stainless-steel bowl. Using an immersion blender, pur e the soup in the bowl, then pur e the soup remaining in the pot. (Alternatively, pur e half at a time in a blender.) Return all the soup to the pot.

Add green onions and corn; let simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Ladle into bowls, garnish with creme fra Æche and top with the chopped bacon.

From Chef Eric Kelly, ‘scape Restaurant

SWEET POTATO BISCUITS

Yield: about 16 biscuits

2medium sweet potatoes

2cups all-purpose flour

1tablespoon granulated sugar

2tablespoons baking powder

1/2teaspoon fine sea salt

5tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces

1/3cup low-fat or whole milk

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake or microwave the potatoes until soft and tender, about 45 minutes in the oven or about 10 minutes in the microwave.

When potatoes are cool enough to touch, peel, then mash until smooth with an old-fashioned potato masher or in a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Measure out 1 cup (reserve the rest for another use).

In the same bowl of the food processor or in the bowl where you mashed the potatoes, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add butter. Pulsing the processor or using a pastry blender, cut in butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal.

Combine sweet potato and milk in a small bowl; whisk until smooth. Add to the flour mixture, mixing until just moist.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly four or five times. Using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out the dough 3/4-inch thick. Cut out 10 biscuits with a 1-inch biscuit cutter, pressing the cutter down without twisting so the biscuits will rise evenly when baked.

Line a rimmed baking sheet with a silicone liner or parchment paper. Place the biscuits on the baking sheet. Gather together the scraps by placing the pieces on top of each other. Roll out 3/4-inch thick and cut 5 or 6 more biscuits. Place on the baking sheet. Discard any remaining dough scraps.

Bake until lightly browned, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Adapted from “Basic to Brilliant, Y’all,” by Virginia Willis (Ten Speed Press, $35)

SWEET POTATO PUFF

Yield: 6 servings

11/2pounds sweet potatoes, baked or microwaved until soft

1teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

1tablespoon balsamic vinegar

3large eggs, separated

1/3cup heavy cream

Kosher or sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 2-quart gratin dish or smaller souffl dishes.

Peel the sweet potatoes and mash them coarsely with a fork in a mixing bowl. Add thyme, vinegar, egg yolks, cream and salt and pepper to taste. Beat until well combined.

In another bowl, whip the egg whites with a pinch of salt to stiff peaks. Fold the whites into the sweet potato mixture gently but thoroughly; spoon into the baking dish or dishes. Bake about 30 minutes (22 to 25 minutes for smaller dishes), until puffed but set and golden in spots.

For the best presentation, serve immediately; puff will deflate slightly as it cools.

Adapted from “One Potato, Two Potato,” by Roy Finamore with Molly Stevens (Houghton Mifflin, 2001)