One of the biggest challenges of producing a holiday meal is figuring out how to cook all of the various dishes and land them all on the table at the same thrilling moment.
It’s not easy, especially when there’s a big roast of some kind hogging the oven for hours. The part that annoys me most? It forces my glazed sweet potatoes, which require 45 minutes in the oven, to sit on the sidelines. Well, not anymore. You can cook these delicious glazed sweet potatoes on top of the stove in about 10 minutes flat.
But let’s talk about the sweet potato before tackling the method.
These days, there’s usually quite a selection of sweet potatoes at the supermarket, many of which are mistakenly called yams. True yams are indigenous to Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Here, they’re mostly sold at Latin or Caribbean markets. They are mild in flavor and starchy. How they became confused with sweet potatoes is a long story, but suffice to say that if you’re at the supermarket in search of a sweet potato that is indeed sweet, you’ll probably be all right whether it’s labeled sweet potato or yam.
As noted, one of the great things about this recipe is that the potatoes don’t need to spend 45 minutes in an oven. Instead, they’re cooked in water in a large skillet. The recipe’s most time-consuming step is peeling and slicing the potatoes, though you certainly can do that ahead of time, then park them on the counter until you’re 10 minutes from dinnertime.