Sweet Potato Fries

Every fall as we watch the leaves change color, we drive by our local burger chain called Burgerville that advertises sweet potato fries.  We love to eat sweet potatoes cooked in just about any fashion, but fried is always good.  We usually will indulge in a small container that seems to be over priced, but we really enjoy them.

Cooking in our garage, I was going to make an Alton Brown fried chicken recipe and once I started to heat the oil, I thought, why not make our own sweet potato fries.  We had about three sweet potatoes that we could not bake (remodeling and no oven), so I washed, peeled, and cut them into strips about one-half an inch thick.

Once the oil in my large Dutch oven reached 325 degrees, I placed a handful of the sweet potato strips into the oil.  Even though sweet potatoes do not contain a lot of water, they really bubble when they cook throwing boiling oil out of the pan, so be careful!

The sweet potato fries took about five minutes a batch to cook.  You want to make sure they are cooked until crispy on the outside (but not burned), or the fries will be limp and rubbery.

I removed the fries with my tongs and placed a plate lined with several layers of paper towels to absorb the excess oil and then lightly sprinkled the fries with salt.  The only problem that I have in cooking sweet potato fries, is that they just don’t seem to last very long, being quickly eaten as fast as I can cook them.

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell