Tzimmes with Sweet Potato and Dried Fruit
Tzimmes is an Ashkenazi holiday dish served at Rosh Hashanah as a wish for a sweet year, and the word long ago escaped the kitchen — in Yiddish-inflected speech “the whole tzimmes” means the heart of the matter, or a fuss made over one. On the plate it is carrots and sweet potato braised with honey and dried fruit to a deep amber.
The vegetables are boiled tender first, then go into a 320°F (160°C) oven, covered, for 40 minutes, and that is where the dish is actually made. Slow, even heat softens the prunes, apricots and raisins until they surrender their own sugar into the liquid, while the honey caramelizes around the rim of the pot where there is least moisture. American markets label sweet potatoes “yams,” so the orange-fleshed kind at any supermarket is exactly what is meant here.
Save the cooking water: the tzimmes braises in it, which puts back everything the vegetables gave up while boiling. The lemon juice is not incidental either — without that acidity the honey, dried fruit and sweet potato merge into one flat, sugary note. Winter squash, or simply twice the carrot, stands in for the sweet potato.
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Ingredients
Instructions
Put the chopped sweet potato and carrots into a pot of salted water and cook until tender.
Drain the water but save it; you'll need it later.
In an ovenproof pot, heat the butter and saute the onion until soft.
Pour in the reserved vegetable cooking liquid to cover the vegetables completely, then add the rest of the ingredients: the dried fruit, honey, ginger, cinnamon, lemon juice, and sugar.
Cover the pot and place it in an oven preheated to 320 F (160 C) for 40 minutes.
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