Sweet Potato Oven Fries*

*more like fat, squishy matchsticks, but let's stick with our socially normed terminology here.

Last time I made sweet potato oven fries, I followed a recipe from "In The Kitchen With Rosie" by Rosie Daley, Oprah's one-time personal chef. The book appeared at the crest of yet another of Oprah's health kicks, and so the recipes call for lots of hot sauce and bread crumbs and low-fat yogurt to help create a simulacra of delicious fried and flavorful goodies. The oven fries called for an egg white coating and an eyebrow-raising amount of cajun seasoning. What I ended up with were fries that were half burned, half just-cooked, with crusty chords of egg white and the bold saltiness of the cajun flavoring taking center stage. Ew.

In preparation for Dinner Party, I scoured message boards and ad-laden recipe sites for a better approach to sweet potato oven fries. Had I a Fry Daddy, things would be different, but seeing as I've already set my oven on fire once, a cauldron of boiling oil is not high on the list of things I want in my kitchen. Moving on...

The primary complaint about oven fries, the sweet kind in particular, is that they don't get crispy enough. They come out soggy or charred; there's no in-between. I read many suggestions, some that would not work for me (no convection oven here, you see), and ultimately tried an amalgam of steps from different recipes that I thought would yield a tasty, if not crisp, oven fry.

Sweet Potato Oven Fries

2 medium-large sweet potatoes
olive oil
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
cayenne pepper
brown sugar

Preheat oven to 425F.

Cut the potatoes in half, width-wise, then halve each half. Cut each of the subsequent quarters into 3-4 thick strips, about an inch wide and 3 inches long.

In an aluminum or glass bowl, soak the potato sticks in cold water for 20 min. This will help release some of the starch, giving you a better chance for a toothsome fry.

After soaking, dry potatoes with paper towels; rinse and dry the bowl you soaked them in. In the bowl, toss the dried potatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper and cayenne. I've left out measurements here because this is easy to eyeball, and the amounts are dependent on personal preference. I put in 8 enthusiastic shakes of cayenne and they had a good, but not overwhelming, heat.

Choose a jelly roll pan or cookie sheet that will allow you to spread the fries out with enough room so that none touch each other. Cover the pan with parchment paper, then spread potatoes over the paper. Cook on the middle rack of the oven for 15-20 min, keeping an eye out so they don't get too browned (temp might need to be a little lower if your oven runs hot; these fries are precarious.) After 15 min, turn or toss fries to encourage even cooking, and return to oven for 10 more minutes.

After 10 minutes, remove the fries from the oven and toss with brown sugar - not enough to coat them completely - maybe 2-3 flat tablespoons. Return to oven for 3-5 min. The sugar will caramelize, leaving nice sweet crunchy bits in strategic areas. Remove from oven and serve warm.

**

The interplay of sweet and spicy was a real treat. A thinner fry would have crisped up better, of course, but sweet potatoes' squishiness is part of their charm, no?