Getting the richest, most flavorful baked sweet potatoes starts with a step that seems counterintuitive: freeze them until they're rock solid. If you're skeptical, know this isn't your average home-cook DIY tip; it's an old Chinese street cooking secret for baking sweet potatoes with a caramel-like aroma that draws crowds from a block away. In China, they freeze the sweet potatoes by leaving them outside in frigid winter temperatures.
We're all for the rustic way, but if snow isn't in your forecast, your freezer will do fine. When you freeze sweet potatoes, a couple of cool things happen (pun intended). First, freezing forces out some of the water inside.
With less water, the flavor becomes more concentrated, similar to how dried fruit tastes sweeter than fresh fruit. As a result, the sweet potatoes' natural flavors become stronger and sweeter when you bake them. The second trick is all about temperature.
When you bake frozen sweet potatoes, they warm up slowly, which is crucial for developing their sweetness. This slow warming keeps them in the ideal temperature range (135 to 170 degrees Fahrenheit) longer. In this range, enzymes are most effective at breaking down starches into maltose, a sugar that gives sweet potatoes their rich flavor.
By freezing sweet potatoes first, you're giving those enzymes the most possible time to work. The result? Sweet, caramel-like baked sweet potatoes that taste like dessert. The best way to cook frozen sweet potatoes There are tons of ways t.
