Sweet Potato

Roasted potatoes are good and all, but a roasted root vegetable medley is just as easy to make and a little bit fancy too. Substitute any root vegetable, including starchy potatoes, turnip, parsnip, celery root, or rutabaga. While the veggies are roasting, toss a garlic bulb or two into the pan at about the 30-minute mark—the result: easy, creamy garlic! Yum.

This is a nice variation on regular sweet potatoes for a Thanksgiving side dish. It's almost a dessert, it's so sweet!

All sorts of neglected or leftover vegetable bits can be transformed into these lovely, lacy-crisp, colorful tempura pancakes.

Daigaku Imo Hanamaru Market, a highly successful, long-running Japanese television talk show, opens with a short cooking segment every weekday morning. Finding ways to make impressive classic cuisine simpler and less technically demanding is the theme of many of the episodes. In the autumn of 2008, one of the broadcasts featured an innovative recipe for daigaku imo (candied sweet potatoes) that topped all previous viewer-rating charts. Indeed, as of this writing, nearly a year later, it remains the all-time favorite. Syrup-glazed, black sesame-studded sweet potato first became a popular snack among university students at the turn of the twentieth century. Indeed, that is the origin of the name of the dish: daigaku means "university" and imo is "potato." Most recipes for daigaku imo instruct the cook to deep-fry sweet potato chunks first and glaze them afterward. Although delicious, the classic version results in a high-calorie snack that is messy both to make and to clean up. In contrast, the Hanamaru Market version offers a (relatively) healthy snack.

In many sweet-potato pies, the ginger and spices overwhelm the flavor of the potatoes. This version plays to the flavor of the tubers; a little spicy nuttiness from the gingersnap pecan crust just emphasizes the pie's luscious creaminess. It is perfectly normal for the surface of a custardy pie, like this one, to crack in the course of baking and cooling—the pie will taste no less delicious.

They're flakier and lighter than your usual biscuits because we've replaced some of the butter with the carotenoid-filled root vegetable. Stash any extras for a hearty Black Friday breakfast.

The technique: Eggs change everything: The yolks add richness and texture, and folding in beaten egg whites elevates the sweet potato casserole to new heights.
The payoff: A sophisticated take on the classic marshmallow-topped sweet potato casserole.

The technique: It's ridiculously simple: Cut the potatoes into wedges, toss with olive oil and ground cumin, then roast.
The payoff: The ideal ratio of crisp to creamy, since there's more surface area exposed in the oven when the sweet potatoes are cut into wedges.

Happy Noodle Restaurant uses local farmraised hybrid striped bass, rated a "Best Choice" by Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch guide, for this Thai-inspired dish.

A classic Moroccan tagine (or stew) is typically made with meat. This satisfying vegetarian main course features three kinds of root vegetables—and a delicious spicy, crunchy chickpea garnish.

The combination of shrimp and root veggies is unexpected—and fantastic. For a vegetarian main, skip the shrimp.

This recipe epitomizes what a great ceviche should be—crunchy, sweet, savory, tart, and rich all in one bite. Corvina, a type of sea bass, is the most widely used fish in South America for ceviche, and is very forgiving for the novice. Its firm, lean flesh holds up better to acid and is easy to either thinly slice or dice. The combination of sweet potato and raw marinated fish is common in Peru, although there the potato might be roasted whole, sliced, and served fanned at the edge of a plate of ceviche similar to this crunchy, tart version. As you eat the marinated fish, pull away bites of sweet potato from the edge of the dish and enjoy both components at once. Don't be swayed to leave out the sweet potato garnish—you must try both the tart, firm fish and the potato in the same bite to really understand and savor how they work together. Leftover sweet potatoes make a great side dish for spicy foods.

Sweet potato curry puffs are a popular Singaporean street food. Slather this luscious curry-spiked sweet potato purée on warm whole-grain paratha bread if you can find it. If not, use whole-grain pita bread instead.

I know what you're thinking. Bananas? Trust me. It's a little trick I picked up from my nights in the kitchen at the famous Le Cirque, in Manhattan. I don't always reveal my secret ingredient, and most people can't put their fingers on what exactly makes this sweet potato recipe so good. But every one loves them. Of course, some heavy cream, butter, and brown sugar doesn't hurt.

Serve with sweet potato or root vegetable chips. The sweet potatoes can be cooked in a microwave in just 10 to 12 minutes.

The mango-pineapple chutney is a delicious condiment for these exotic potato cakes, which would be great with poached eggs for brunch.

Don't have 60 minutes to roast a root vegetable? Try cooking yams in a microwave for about five minutes on each side and you'll have yams that are soft and ready to mash—fast.

For a super-authentic version of this recipe, order some Honeycup mustard from vineandtable.com and a ham from smithfieldhams.com.