It's the off season for me right now (2 weeks of it), which means no exercise, and some more "normal" foods. The top of my list of junk foods is fries…..I just love them. With the thought of fries on my head more often than not right now, I got thinking about sweet potato fries and how I've perfected the art of making the home batch.For anyone who has tried this, its no easy task to get them coming out like the local pub's version. I actually make sweet potato fries on almost every major 70.3 or Ironman race week that I do, at 5 days out from race day. This is part of a mini fat load prior to the carbohydrate load during the final 2 days before the event. I thought I'd take this time to go over how to make the PERFECT batch!
- Buy the largest, straightest sweet potatoes you can.
- Skin your sweet potatoes with a peeler or with a knife and cut off the ends.
- Cut your sweet potatoes into fry size morsels with a rectangular cross section of about 1/2″ x 1/4″. Make them as long as you wish!
- Soak these fry's in an ice bath (a bowl filled with ice water and ice), for about 2 hours. This step pulls some sugar out of the potato and helps keep them from burning.
- Prepare a plate with plenty of corn starch (enough to coat the fries), and season the mound of corn starch with "Emerald's" seasoning (or other at your choice).
- Pull each fry out of the ice bath and coat with this mixture…..place them on a separate plate. Let them sit for about a 1/2 hour to allow the coating to really sit in.
- Begin heating a good sized sauce pan (the big one that looks like a pan but has short vertical sides), with about 1/4-1/2″ oil in it. I typically use smart balance oil which behaves pretty well under high temps, and has a good blend of omega-6, and omega-3 fatty acids. It's actually just a blend of soy bean oil ("vegetable oil"), canola, and olive. Heat this at about medium heat….not hot enough to have the oil smoke.
- Once the oil is up to heat, place enough fries in the pan to cover all available space without stacking them. Cook until a golden brown and a good crispy crust. Pull them out with a screened spatula or tongs. Place them on a paper towel and layer with other batches until complete.
- Once done, toss the fries in a mixture of seasoned salt: 2 teaspoons fine sea salt 1 teaspoon brown sugar 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon chili powder
- Place all of the fries on a single plate and enjoy with Catsup!
I hope this post solves the mystery of the sweet potato fry which so many people struggle with at home (go ahead and do a search on them and you'll see what I'm talking about)! They are a great, reasonably healthy way to eat "bad"……particularly during the holidays!
-Jesse
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