Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Maple Syrup and Red Chile by Chef Lois Ellen Frank

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Place the sweet potatoes, cut side down, on a sheet pan or baking dish and add ¾ cups of the water. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and add the remaining ¾ cup water to the bottom of the pan. Return the potatoes to the oven and cook for another 20 minutes.
3. While the potatoes are cooking, in a medium bowl, combine the maple syrup and red chile powder. Squeeze the juice from the lime into the maple syrup. Whisk until completely mixed. Set aside.
4. After the sweet potatoes have cooked for the second 20 minutes, remove them from the oven and turn them over so the cut side is up and the skin side is down. Using a sharp knife, score each sweet potato diagonally 4 times all the way down to the skin but without piercing through the skin. Then score the potatoes diagonally 4 times in the other direction to create crisscross pattern.
5. Drizzle 1 to 1½ tablespoons of the maple syrup mixture over each sweet potato. Allow the mixture to soak into the sweet potato. Return the pan to the oven and bake for another 10 minutes.
6. Place each sweet potato onto a plate. If desired, serve with the Wild Rice Sauté. Drizzle some of the remaining maple syrup mixture around each sweet potato. Serve immediately.