White Sweet Potato Preserve Turnovers, Empanadillas de Dulce de Boniato, A Winter Delicacy on a Fall Day
I find it interesting to see how this blog thing is working out. Take this week, for instance. I had a few ideas in my head as to what to make for this week’s post. I could choose from a number of recipes that included Fall vegetables —the beautiful pumpkins, or butternut squash, sweet potatoes, delicata or acorn squash. I hadn’t made up my mind yet, waiting to see what peaked my interest.
With all these recipe ideas dancing in my head, I took my sons Ethan and David to the eye doctor on the rare day when they both had the day off (they attend different schools). Needless to say, this was the last thing they wanted to do on their day off from school. But I made it interesting, I promised lunch out, which we did, and then a trip to the pumpkin farm.
Visiting the pumpkin farm is a must in the Indiana Fall. We’ve been doing it for many years now, since the boys were babies, and still today it is a fun place for them to go. And who am I kidding, also for me, walking amongst gorgeous, beautiful pumpkins, of all shapes, sizes and colors, like a child walks into a candy store —so many to choose from, each one saying pick me, pick me, and I can’t get them all.
The temperature was perfect, closer to a late-summer day than to an autumn day. Clouds covered the sky for most of the day, with the sun peaking through them from time to time, which was just enough for the boys to have to wear sun glasses, since their pupils had been dilated.
It is always a treat to go to the pumpkin farm. In some years, when the boys were younger, we even picked our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch, and rode on the hay wagon. For me, this is way more fun than choosing a Christmas tree. In fact, I have a hard time thinking of a cut Christmas tree —even if it was farmed, I can’t stop thinking of all the years the little tree invested in growing, only to be chopped down for a family to hang lights and decorations from it and enjoy it until the tree can’t stand it any longer and dries out.
But back to Fall.
We spent a wonderful afternoon, walking between the pumpkins, picking some, delighting at the many varieties of apples, preserves and jams for sale, prepared by the farmers. The boys enjoyed playing on the makeshift playground swings and basketball inside the barn, and in the intriguing maze in the corn field, where Ethan kept hiding from me —and from my camera.
After a satisfying afternoon at the farm, we headed to the market, a short stop to get some milk and yogurts before getting home and think of dinner. Focused on milk and yogurts, I headed to the dairy section, cutting through the produce area, where what do I find? Boniatos! White sweet potatoes!
The first time I saw sweet potatoes in a North American market I bought them thinking they where boniatos, the kind I was used to in Spain. Unpeeled, it is almost impossible to distinguish the two kinds. In Spain, boniatos, white sweet potatoes, are eaten mostly sweet, in preserves, or as fillings in turnovers and other pastries. My surprise when I got home was to find out that these boniatos were orange inside! I had never seen this kind of root vegetable before. I didn’t know what to do with them. It wasn’t long before I celebrated my first ever Thanksgiving, Canadian style, in October, where my mother-in-law served them as a side for turkey.
I’ve spent many thanksgivings in North America now, both in Canada and in the United States, and I can make sweet potatoes in many different ways, from mashed to roasted to baked to pureed, in soups. The orange flesh sweet potato doesn’t have many secrets for me anymore, and I have never, I repeat, never, in all these years, found boniatos, white flesh sweet potatoes.
Until, that is, on my short trip to the supermarket last week, with a trunk full of pumpkins. I’m sure some of you reading this will think, well, you just didn’t find them before, but they were always there. That could be. But finding them at the market, after all these years without them, made my day —my week!— and I will now look for them every Fall.
Dulce de boniato, white sweet potato preserve, is associated with the winters of my youth. My mom made it specially sweet, and we ate it in bowls, with a spoon, as an afternoon snack, on cold winter afternoons (believe it or not, it can get cold in the Spanish houses in winter, and this is specially true in the Mediterranean, where homes are not well suited for the colder weather). At Christmas time, dulce de boniato is incorporated into turnovers and other pastries and tarts, and it is a very popular Christmas treat in the Valencian Community, together with turrón, which originates there as well, particularly in the province of Alicante (more on turrón in due time).
So I scratched all the ideas that I had in mind for this week’s recipes, and after admiring my boniatos, my white sweet potatoes, for another day, I set off to make that special treat, empanadillas de dulce de boniato, white sweet potato preserve turnovers. Like with many Spanish pastries, the crust for empanadillas calls for oil instead of butter. Flaky pastry on the outside and moist, creamy filling in the inside, make for a wonderful combination.
I hope you like them as much as I do.
WHITE SWEET POTATO PRESERVE TURNOVERS
Empanadillas de Dulce de Boniato
This recipe has two steps, making the filling and making the pastry dough and the turnovers, so allow for at least 2 hours. Alternatively, you can prepare the dulce de boniato, the white sweet potato filling, the day before.
Ingredients:
Yields about 4 dozen turnovers if using a 3.5” cookie cutter
For the white sweet potato preserve (dulce de boniato):
2 pounds white sweet potatoes
1 pound granulated sugar (about 2 1/4 cups)
1 cup water
1 tsp cinnamon
Peel of 1 lemon, finely grated
For the pastry dough:
1 cup oil (light olive oil or canola)
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup anise liqueur (I used rum)
2 Tbs granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling
About 3 cups flour
1 egg
Prepare the white sweet potato preserve (dulce de boniato):
Wash the white sweet potatoes, peel them and cut them into 1 to 1 1/2 inch pieces. Place in a pot with enough water to just cover the pieces, and cook at medium heat until they soften, 12-15 minutes (insert a fork to check for doneness). Place the softened sweet potatoes in a bowl and mash them with a fork (you can also use a food mill or a potato masher or ricer to do this).
In a pot (you can use the same one), add the water and the sugar and dissolve at medium heat, until it reaches the consistency of syrup. Lower the heat and add the white sweet potato puree, incorporating the syrup. Add the grated lemon peel and the cinnamon and mix all the ingredients well. Cook at low heat for a few minutes and remove from the source of heat.
Let cool while you work on the pastry dough.
Prepare the pastry dough:
In a large bowl, mix all the liquid ingredients. Dissolve the sugar well. Add the flour, a little bit at the time, and mix until you obtain a dough that doesn’t stick to your fingers (I added the flour in 1/3 cup increments, mixing in the bowl first, until the dough became more consistent; then I mixed on the counter, adding spoonfuls of flour as needed).
Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
For the next step, I like to work in batches.
Divide the dough into at least four portions. On a floured surface, roll one of the portions into a 1/4 inch sheet. Using a 3.5” cookie cutter, cut as many rounds of dough as the rolled out dough allows. Using a floured rolling pin, roll out each round to a 1/8” thickness. Using a teaspoon, place a dollop of dulce de boniato on one half of each round. Lift the other half of the round and turn it over the first, pressing on the edges with your fingers to close any gaps.
Place each turnover on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Beat the egg and brush each turnover. Sprinkle with granulated sugar (you can also sprinkle with a small pinch of cinnamon if desired).
Place the tray in the center of the 350ºF preheated oven and bake for about 25 minutes, or until lightly golden.
Remove from the oven and from the pan to let cool.
While the first batch of turnovers is in the oven, start working on the next batch, using a second cookie sheet. Continue to work in this manner, until all the pastry dough is used.
Notes: this recipe yields about 4 dozen turnovers, so I like to use two cookie trays: when one is in the oven, I fill a second one, so it’s ready to go in the oven when the first batch comes out.
If anise liqueur is not available, you can use rum instead.
Leftover dulce de boniato is delicious spread on toasts or scones
Farm photos taken at Hilger’s Family Farm, Fort Wayne, IN
