Hasselback Sweet Potatoes with Bacon and Cheese
The Swedish Hasselback
This delicious gluten and lactose free sweet potato dish can be served as a main course or as a side dish. Thanks for Leif Ellison, a trainee chef at Hasselbacken restaurant on Djurgården, Stockholm, who invented this super easy potato dish in 1953. Normal potatoes were used in his original version.
Only Your Creativity Could be the Limit
In the original Hasselback, the chef used only normal potatoes, butter, and pepper. I use sweet potato in my version and add cheese, bacon, rosemary and truffle oil. But your possibilities are unlimited.
You can use oil instead of butter if you follow strict dairy free diet. I use lactose free or organic grass-fed butter. The combination of a good quality flavored oil and brewer’s yeast is perfect for people who prefer vegan or vegetarian diet. If you are a carnivore, like me, you can also put bacon, prosciutto, chorizo between the slices. Use paprika powder, caraway seeds, different herbs. It’s delicious with dill also. Everything is up to you. Be creative!
After the baking, sweet potatoes are creamy inside and the edges are crispy. Their color is nice golden brown.
Sweet Potato
It is a large, starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous root vegetable. They are called potatoes, but sweet potatoes and potatoes are only distant cousins. Both of them are root vegetables but sweet potato belongs to the bindweed or morning glory family, while potato to the nightshade family.
Sweet potato is a rich source of fiber as well as containing minerals including iron, calcium, selenium, a good source of B vitamins and vitamin C, and very high in an antioxidant known as beta-carotene, which converts to vitamin A once consumed.
Studies have suggested that there are antioxidants in the peel of sweet potatoes in particular, and especially purple sweet potato. So there’s no need to peel them, simply scrub well before cooking or baking.
Sweet potatoes are low-fat but high-carb food. Unfortunately, they are not in the list of the recommended dishes if you are following ketogenic diet. But it is free to taste. Always the quantity counts.
Tip!
Do not peel sweet potatoes, simply scrub well before cooking or baking!
Hasselback Sweet Potatoes with Bacon and Cheese
Ingredients
- 2 big sweet potatoes
- 2 tbsp lactose free butter or organic grass-fed butter
- 50 gram Cheddar cheese grated
- 1 tsp fresh rosemary chopped
- 16 slices bacon organic, unsalted
- 2 ml truffle oil
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 220 °C.
- Wash sweet potatoes very well then dry with kitchen paper. Do not peel them!
- For each sweet potato, cut a very thin slice lengthwise from the bottom so they can stand without rolling.
- Slice into each sweet potato crosswise at 4 mm intervals. Be careful! The slices should stay together at the bottom. I used wooden spoons lengthwise on opposite sides of the potatoes to avoid the cutting.
- Make the hasselback with bacon. Chop the bacon slices to 5 cm pieces. Push a piece of bacon to each intervals of sweet potato. Spread with 1 tbsp butter. Season with salt and pepper. Do not season it with salt if the bacon is salted.
- Make the cheesy hasselback. Spread the top of the sweet potato with 1 tbsp butter. Sprinkle with chopped rosemary. Season with salt and pepper. The cheese is added after the prebaking.
- Place sweet potatoes to baking tray. Cover with foil and bake for 40 minutes.
- Uncover potatoes. Finish the cheesy hasselback. Use a butter knife to open the layers a bit and sprinkle the grated cheese between them. Drizzle the top of the bacon hasselback with truffle oil.
- Put sweet potato hasselbacks back to the oven and roast them for about 15 minutes, until they are tender, and the edges are crisp. Enjoy!