Sassy Southern Cooking with a French Twist

Yankee Tradition Goes Southern with Sweet Potato and Grits Twist

I’m re-sending this recipe and post out again from my new Williamsburg, VA home for several reasons.  Fall is here and along with it brilliant leaves and cooler temperatures that tend to stir the appetite for warm and nurturing foods, like this deftly textured and richly flavored sweet potato and grits pudding. It uses ingredients of the South and also very much Colonial era ingredients – such as ground corn upon which our 17th-century brethren depended heavily for survival. Also, it’s one of my all time favorites from my personal collection and near the top of the list of the recipes included in my cookbook, Mashed – Beyond the Potato (Gibbs Smith, 2016). Finally, Thanksgiving is coming and this is the perfect ending for your feast, or just to cozy up in front of a fire with friends and warm conversation. I love the color and flavor sweet potato adds, and the grist of the grits melts into the pudding as it cooks. Delicious! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Sweet Potato Indian Pudding

(Yields 6 to 8 servings)

This rustic and gorgeous sweet pudding combines elements of the traditional Indian pudding I grew to know and love as a child in my native New England, with ingredients widely used in Williamsburg, VA  and throughout the South – sweet potatoes and grits. The New England version skips the sweet potatoes all together and uses cornmeal as the “corn” element of the pudding, while this recipe adds the perfectly appropriate flavor and texture girth of mashed sweet potatoes and grits – a rougher, stone-ground version of cornmeal. The results are stunning. As southerners are apt to say, “It’s the best thing you’ll ever put in your mouth.”

It’s best warm with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream on top. If you can’t find stone-ground grits, cornmeal or polenta will work fine. But, skip the instant variety. Longer cooking soaks up all the flavor of the pudding and melts the corn into one integrated bowl of perfection.

Sweet Potato Indian Pudding from Mashed – Beyond the Potato (Gibbs Smith, 2016) by Holly Herrick. Photograph by Alexandra DeFurio

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked, mashed sweet potatoes

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature

3 cups Half & Half

1/3 cup stone ground white or yellow grits (or substitute cornmeal)

1/4 cup molasses

2 large eggs

1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

2 teaspoons real vanilla extract

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes

 

The day before cooking, prep the mashed sweet potatoes. Preheat oven to 425F. Scrub and pierce a large sweet potato a couple times with a knife. Bake until soft and skin is puckered, about one hour. Remove skin when cook enough to handle and mash until fine and fluffy. Reserve (refrigerate, covered, for several days).

On pudding day, preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 1 1/2 to 2 quart deep-sided baking dish with 1 tablespoon butter. Bring the Half & Half up to a simmer over medium high heat in a medium-sized pot. Do not boil! When simmering, whisk in the sweet potatoes, grits and molasses. Whisk, constantly, over medium high heat until thickened to a thin pudding stage, about 5 minutes. Turn off heat and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, brown sugar, salt, vanilla, ginger and cinnamon until frothy. Whisk in 1 cup of the warm pudding mixture. Pour in the remaining pudding mixture and whisk to combine. Pour the pudding into the buttered baking dish. Bake on center rack for 40 minutes. Add the cold butter cubes, sprinkling evenly over the top. Reduce the heat to 325F. Cook 45 – 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. The pudding will quiver slightly to the touch. Remove from oven. Rest 10 to 15 minutes before serving. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Bon appetit and enjoy the fall!

Author, Chef, Cookbook writer Holly Herrick

Holly and Rocky

 

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