Buttery Sweet Potatoes

One year for our traditional pot-luck Thanksgiving meal I was asked to provide "the sweet potatoes". Naturally, given my proclivities towards non-traditionalism, I did not want to make anything usual or familiar. About that time I happened to receive, via a cooking group, a recipe for "Sweet Potatoes Anna". Sounded good!

Now, I was long familiar with the traditional dish called "Pommes Anna", consisting of thinly sliced white potatoes, traditionally layered in a cast-iron skillet with lots of butter, pressed and cooked until the mass forms a type of "cake" with a crispy outside and a soft, potato-y inside.

Despite that knowledge, I managed to misconstrue this "Sweet Potatoes Anna" dish totally. It called for a bunch of sweet potatoes, thinly sliced, and 0.25 lbs of butter, layered. Well, when I started to assemble it in a casserole, I ran out of butter way too soon to continue layering with the sweet potatoes, so naturally I melted more. And then more. And yet more. You can see where this is going. The current dish is basically sweet potatoes braised in butter (through submersion).

What I ended up with is now affectionately known as "Butter Casserole with Sweet Potatoes", although I do limit myself to one pound of butter. I also discovered that I preferred a rather longer cooking time than originally suggested, which seem to give the butter enough time to penetrate the sweet-potato slices fully. I have, however, retained the original cooking temperature.

This is the dish that I'm now asked to bring every time. I suspect that, since I bring it, no one else has to feel guilty about eating all that butter. I rarely bring home left-overs.

Buttery Sweet Potatoes

  • 5 or 6 largish sweet potatoes (whatever ends up fitting your casserole dish)
  • 1 pound of butter -- I prefer unsalted
  • some crushed thyme
  1. Peel the sweet potatoes and then slice them into the thinnest possible slices. I use the fine slicing disk of the food processor.
  2. Melt the butter.
  3. In a large, covered casserole dish, put in a layer of sweet potatoes, pour over some of the butter, and sprinkle on some thyme. Repeat until sweet potatoes and butter are used up. Try to end with some butter to moisten the top layer of sweet potatoes.
  4. Put the lid on the casserole dish and bake in a 425°F over for about 1 and 1/2 hours. The time is not so critical, but much shorter and the sweet potatoes don't soften and absorb as much butter, whereas much longer and they get too indistinct.