Roasted Sweet Potatoes (군고구마)

A couple of days after my dad arrived, he was still fighting jetleg and dozing off at random hours. When the dinner time came around, he just wanted something simple.

Me) How about roasted sweet potatoes for dinner? (저녁으로 군고구마 어때요?)

Dad) That sounds great! (좋지!)

M) Want a glass? (한잔 하실래요?)

D) Of course, don't you know roasted sweet potatoes are great with wine? (물론이지! 군고구마가 와인하고 잘 어울리는 걸 니는 모르나?)

M) Oh?

So it has been declared. My dad's declaration precedes any and all logical, objective flavor parings. I take out the one bottle of red I have, along with toasted nuts in residence. After reaching his alcohol limit of one glass, blaming his jetleg, he dozes off again on the couch.

In my family, sweet pancakes (호떡; ho tteok), roasted chestnuts (군밤; gun bam) and roasted sweet potatoes (군고구마; gun go gu ma) have always been the trinity of favorite winter street food. We bought them often from the neighborhood stands when we lived in Korea. After moving to the U.S., we eventually figured out how to make-do with available tools at home. We roasted sweet potatoes wrapped in foil in the fireplace just after putting out the fire. My mom's experimentations with flour, sweet rice flour and yeast to make hotteok always came out delicious.

Roasting sweet potatoes on a stovetop is simple, but just takes a bit of time. It's very similar to roasting chestnuts. Rinse and place sweet potatoes in a cast iron pan over low heat. Turn them every 10 minutes or so for even cooking on all sides. Depending on the size, it may take 30 minutes to an hour. When a toothpick (or a chopstick) is inserted through with no resistence, it is done!

I microwave sweet potatoes first for 3 minutes before putting them in a cast iron pan to shorten the cooking time - although I don't think it makes that much difference at the end. It can also be done using a regular pot, but the cleanup would be a bit messier. I find that with its size and concentrated sweet flavor, the smaller, longer kind - commonly known as Japanese sweet potato - works well for the stove top roasting.

One common paring with roasted sweet potoates in Korea is to eat them with kimchi. It sounds like an unlikely combination, but the soft sweet potatoes that can be a bit dry on their own go surprisingly well with spicy, tart, crunchy kimchi.