In The Christmas Company, Kate and many other people in town surprise Clark with a lavish Christmas feast. It includes every holiday treat imaginable—including sweet potato biscuits and ham. Our recipe would be a brilliant use of leftovers from your own holiday meal, and a perfect main dish for a Christmas brunch or lunch.
Yield: 10 servings
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
INGREDIENTS
Sweet Potato Biscuits:
2¼ cups flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold, diced into pieces
1 cup cooked mashed sweet potatoes, chilled*
¼ cup cold buttermilk
14 to 16 ounces sliced country ham (about 2 slices)
1 tablespoon butter
as needed, honey
as needed, country Dijon mustard
as needed, blackberry preserves (or apricot preserves)
as needed, butter
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 450°F.
2. To prepare sweet potato biscuits: combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a food processor bowl fitted with a steel blade and pulse to blend. Add cold butter pieces and pulse until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal.
3. Add mashed sweet potatoes and buttermilk to flour mixture and pulse just until mixture comes together and forms a dough.
4. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface. Gently knead just until smooth; pat into a circle to a thickness of ¾ to 1-inch. Using a 3-inch biscuit cutter, cut out biscuits. Arrange on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Gather left-over dough into a ball, pat into a circle and cut out remaining biscuits (recipe makes ten 3-inch biscuits).
5. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown, rotating the baking sheet halfway through baking.
6. While biscuits are baking, cut ham slices into 2 to 3-inch pieces. Melt butter in a heavy skillet over medium heat; add ham pieces and cook on each side for 2 to 3 minutes, or until sizzling and golden around outer edges.
7. Split sweet potato biscuits horizontally, layer ham on bottom halves of biscuits and close with top halves. Arrange on a serving tray with choice of condiments.
* Recipe uses left-over plain unseasoned mashed sweet potatoes. Or roast a whole medium to large-size sweet potato (enough to make 1 cup of mashed sweet potato, without the skin) at 400°F for about 1 hour or until tender; cool, peel off skin and roughly mash sweet potato.