Sweet Potato Fries

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These, as written below, are great, but cutting them (skins on) into 3/4" or 1" thick rounds, tossing in olive oil, salt and pepper and then cooking on parchment at 450 for 20 minutes, flipping once, cooking an additional 10 minutes makes them PERFECT! (Though no longer fry shaped)
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My first attempt was to simply cut them into wedges (skins on) and coat with olive oil, salt and pepper. They were okay (Scott said they were really good, but I think he was trying to be sweet – the insides were overcooked and dry, like mashed potatoes that need more milk and butter added!) There were 2 good things that came out of this experiment however: 1) I had accidentally picked up a white sweet potato and despite the color, they seem to work the same and they taste really good!; 2) the outsides of the fries were crispy and delicious – if I could increase surface to insides ratio, I would have the perfect fry!

Experiment 2 (electric bugaloo …) – I had it in my head to use my mandolin slicer to make waffle fries – figured that would give me maximum surface area and a thinner cut would improve that pesky surface to insides ratio. Issue: the waffle slice mode makes for thin slices – too thin to work for this application. So, I sliced them to 1/8th inch instead, coated them in olive oil, salt and pepper and popped them into a 350 degree oven for 8 minutes, flipped them, gave them another 10. They were good, but they did not brown very well. But the insides were perfect!!! Not too dry.

I think next time I make them (soon … I just bought the super crazy cheap “it’s Easter!” 5lb box of them) I will start them off at a higher temp, and then lower it to 350 when I flip them.