Nearly all of my friends like beer. In fact, a certain group of them LOVE beer. Their faces light up and their language gets animated and they gesticulate wildly when they talk about a particular beer called "Awaken" on tap at a little brewery here in town called Trinity. This group of friends spends a lot of time there. Unfortunately, I don't like beer. I would feel like a "cooler" person if I did and I have put forth a valiant effort to acquire a taste for it, but to no avail. I think the stuff is gross. So when we go to Trinity, the options for me are yummy snacks/appetizers (or if I want a drink, they keep a pear "beer" on tap but I have been told it is much too sweet and much too girly to actually qualify as beer!). One of these appetizers that we all like are the sweet potato fries w/ curry ketchup. I am not much of a sweet potato person, but I like these fries and even more so, I LOVE the curry ketchup. Really, if I am honest, the fries are just a vehicle for the sauce!
A couple weeks ago, my kitchen buddy, Megan, sent me a recipe that she had for sweet potato fries. I tried them on Friday night and they were a dismal failure. The ends burned and the middles were mushy. Undeterred by initial failure, I "Google'd" Sweet Potato Fries and lo and behold, there are some people with strong opinions and passions for these things out there! After a little research, I discovered that my mistake was letting these little fries touch each other in the pan. Apparently, sweet potatoes have a really high water content and so if the fries are touching each other, more water releases and it "steams" the fry and causes mushiness.
I tried them again this afternoon and carefully laid out each fry so that none of them were touching. It worked and I had a delightful batch of crisp-on-the-outside, warm-and-soft-on-the-inside Sweet Potato Fries. I added a little curry to my ketchup and TA-DA! I had one of my favorite snacks right here in my cozy house!
Sweet Potato Fries w/ Curry Ketchup
1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into fries
drizzle olive oil
1-2 tsp coarse sea salt
1 tsp rosemary
ketchup
curry powder
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
- In a bowl, drizzle the fries with olive oil. Mix with your hands until the fries are lightly coated.
- Add the salt and rosemary and mix again. (I did 2 tsp of salt because I like things pretty salty. I would guess that most people would be satisfied with just 1 tsp or even less. I used fresh rosemary because we had it. Feel free to adjust the amount depending on how strong you want the rosemary to be)
- Lay the fries out on a cookie sheet. They can be close together but don't let them touch!
- Bake for 15 minutes. Turn the fries over. Bake for another 15-20 minutes. Watch them closely near the end as they will burn easily.
- Mix the curry with ketchup a little at a time until it tastes good to you.
- Serves 1-2 people
Enjoy!
(And for fun, below is a picture of my beer-loving friends at Trinity from last weekend!)
I can't get enough of these either! I may give up red potatoes altogether. Thanks for the tip of not letting them touch! I will have to try that next time. I was just 'dealing' with it.
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