If you think gratin might be too much for you and your guests to handle, try this alternative. The apples slice through the starchy duvet of carbohydrate with their playful tartness, while the melting shallots pile on the splendour with their liquorice-dark agrodolce.
Should you be curious, this is so named because I have only made this on Christmas Eve. Nothing more profound.
Ingredients
2 kg orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, peeled
10 pink shallots, peeled
700g medium-sized floury potatoes, peeled and halved
50g unsalted butter
700g parsnips, peeled
2 star anise
3 Granny smith apples, peeled and cored
30g rock sugar
100g butter
90ml rice wine
110ml cream
50ml black vinegar
Bring a huge pot of water to a boil then liberally salt it. Hack the sweet potatoes into 3 inch chunks and plunk them in. After 4 minutes, add the potatoes. After 4 minutes, chunk the parsnips and add them. Cut the apples into eighths and add them after 5 minutes. After about 5 minutes, everything should be cooked through. Don't worry about a small number of casualties.
I mash them with an ordinary potato masher before using electric beaters with gusto. You want the mash as soothingly smooth and fluffy as you can muster. Beat in the butter and warm milk. Set aside. This reheats beautifully.
Bobble the shallots with the butter and star anise in a saucepan over a medium-low heat until they are just tender. Add the rock sugar and stir to dissolve and caramelise. Slosh in the sherry and black vinegar. Reduce to a dark syrup. You can leave it like this and reheat it later, adding a tablespoon or two of boiling water to get it going.
As everything goes to the table, mound Eve's mash on a platter and create a well or, as the Scandinavians say, 'an eye in the middle' into which you spoon the shallots and its delicious syrup.
