So last night M’hijito and I went over to his friends’ house, watched the twins play, admired the laid-back dogs, socialized with 87 degrees of friends and relatives, and ate ourselves stupid. Among our contributions to the feast was a cashew-yam casserole resurrected from my hippie-dippie youth.
A vintage recipe, one might say. Served up in a vintage orange enamel pan with an avocado green interior. 😀
It went over well: the young people liked it. Maybe you will, too. Here’s the trick:
Get your hands on…
• about 2½ pounds yams or sweet potatoes
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 egg
• ¼ orange juice
• ¼ dry sherry
• 3 Tbsp butter, melted
• about 1 tablespoon grated orange rind (optional)
• ½ cup cashews, coarsely chopped
• small amount (about 1/6 cup) sugar, to taste (I used demerara sugar; brown sugar’s nice; white sugar will do the job)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Wash the yams and trim off any scruffy parts. Cut them in half or thirds. Place them on a baking pan (I like to line the pan with a sheet of tinfoil, thereby minimizing clean-up), set them in the oven, and let them roast until they’re tender all the way through — about 45 minutes or an hour.
When the yams are cooked, remove them from the oven and let them cool until you can handle them. Peel off the skins (they should lift off in your fingers) and trim away any caramelized spots and flaws. Smush them with a fork and then measure: you should have about three cups. Transfer the cooked yam into a mixing bowl.
Add cinnamon, salt, egg, juice, sherry, orange rind, and sugar. Using an electric mixer, beat the mixture like crazy until it’s nice and fluffy. If it seems too dry, add a little more juice or sherry. Mix in two tablespoons of the butter.
Spoon the whipped yams into a one-quart casserole or soufflé dish. At this point, you can cover and refrigerate the dish, if you’re making it ahead of time.
Melt the rest of the butter and mix the cashews around in it to butter them well. Sprinkle over the casserole and bake, uncovered, in a 375-degree oven until heated through: about 15 minutes, or about 35 minutes if refrigerated.
You can place this dish in a 325-degree oven with a turkey, baking it a little longer to make up for the lower heat.
Also, you can double it for a large holiday meal; in that case, bake it at 325 degrees for about 1 to 1½ hours.