Baked Sweet Potatoes and Ham with Cheese

Wish I had a better name for this dish. It was inspired by my friend Carmel, who shared with me her method of, as she put it, satisfying her need for sweet potatoes. All I really did to change it was add the tomatoes, since Carmel had complained that the finished dish was a little dry.

This is a stick-to-your-ribs meal, which worked out perfectly because the night before the morning I made it, a snow storm had blown through. So hearty eating seemed in order. A light, crispy salad is a great companion to this dish.

A dire mistake I made was that I used something called—I kid you not—Pasteurized Process Gruyère Cheese Product. I know. But it was the only Gruyère-type cheese available that day at the new Schnuck's in Savoy (I figure whoever made the order got it by mistake, meaning to get the real Gruyère). I looked at it and looked at it, and thought about stopping at another store, and finally decided that, well, it's made by actual Swiss people, how bad can it be? Of course, it bore no resemblance to Gruyère. If the Swiss made American cheese, this would be it. It had a bit of a tang compared to American cheese, but otherwise you could just substitute one for the other and not notice the difference. It wasn't that it was a horrible cheese, if you like a mild, white cheese product. It was more that what I really wanted in this dish was the rich, nutty flavor of real Gruyère.

But enough ranting about cheese product, and on to the recipe. In this version I used half sweet and half regular baking potatoes. I think it's important that the chunks of ham and the chunks of potatoes be about the same size, so that you get nice bitefulls of a mixture of all the ingredients, not just the potatoes.

Baked Sweet Potatoes and Ham with Cheese

2 large sweet potatoes, chopped into bite-sized pieces
2 large russet potatoes, chopped into bite-sized pieces
3 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped (I used a red onion)
About 3/4 of a pound ham, chopped into bite-sized pieces (I used a ham steak that was maybe 1/2-inch thick)
2 to 3 smallish tomatoes
Fresh or dried herbs (I had some branches of oregano on the windowsill that had dried out, so I used the leaves from those. I think that sage, rosemary, or thyme—or dill—would be great in this dish.)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
About 1/2 pound Gruyère cheese, coarsely grated (My rant above notwithstanding, you could try the Gruyère cheese product if you wanted to save $$$, or you could use regular Swiss or Mozzarella cheese.)

Preheat the oven to 375 °F.

Wash and chop both kinds of potatoes into bite-sized pieces. Put the potatoes into a vegetable steamer in a large pot and cook until just tender when pierced with a fork (if you don't have a steamer, you could just boil the potatoes). While the potatoes are steaming, heat the oil and butter in a largeish skillet. When the butter foams, put in the chopped onions and ham. Sauté the mixture for about 10 minutes, or until the onions are nice and soft and have started to brown. Add the chopped tomatoes and the herb(s) of your choice, and grind in lots of fresh pepper. Add a bit of salt if desired. Cook over medium heat until the tomatoes have released their juices and the mixture is sauce-y.

When the potatoes are just tender, remove them from the steamer (or drain, if you boiled them). Butter a baking dish (I used a shallow 9- x 12-inch oval dish) and put about half of the potatoes into it. Season the potatoes with salt and pepper. Cover the potatoes with about half of the ham-onion-tomato mixture, then with about half the grated cheese. Layer in the rest of the potatoes (season with salt and pepper), the remaining ham-onion-tomato mixture, and the remaining cheese.

Bake at 375 °F for about 20 minutes, until cheese is melted and is starting to brown.

Makes about 4 main-dish or 6 side-dish servings