Prep Time: 20 mins | Cook Time: 45 mins
Serves approx. 12 as a generous side dish
This recipe is a huge hit at all of our holiday parties and has been in my wife's family for generations. It's a classic side dish on Thanksgiving and Christmas in the deep south in America. Just quietly, it's actually more of a dessert, but who cares... at the holidays it can be considered a side dish - there are vegetables in it after all!
Ingredients
FILLING
• 5 cups baked, mashed orange kumara*
• 113g unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla paste
• 1/2 cup full-fat milk
TOPPING
• 3/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
• 1/2 cup flour
• 3/4 cup chopped pecans
• 50g butter softened
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Poke holes in orange kumara with a fork, rub with some olive oil, salt and pepper and bake for 45-75 minutes depending on the size of your kumara until super tender inside. This is great to do alongside other baking while you have the oven on.
2. Once cooked through, remove kumara from the oven and set aside to cool enough until you can handle it, scoop the flesh out of the skins and mash until smooth. Meanwhile, mix the sugar, softened butter, eggs, vanilla and milk together for the filling in a medium bowl until well combined. Stir in the mashed kumara and pour into a large buttered casserole dish. At this stage, you can cover and refrigerate the filling overnight until you're ready to top it, bake and serve.
3. To make the topping, in a small bowl mix together brown sugar, flour, chopped pecans and butter with a fork until it resembles a wet sandy mixture. You can make this ahead and refrigerate overnight separately if needed.
4. When ready to serve, crumble the topping over the filling mixture evenly and bake for 35 to 45 minutes until the topping is golden brown and crispy and the filling is piping hot!