Sweet Potato Flop

For a whole week I had been craving sweet potato fries. I don't eat fries very often, but when the craving hits, it hits terribly hard. California is one of the few places I've lived that actually serves sweet potato (yam, more appropriately) fries, chips, whatever you want to call them. In may, in fact, be the only place I've lived to do so.

That said, my own kitchen attempts to recreate the crispy-skinned gooey-centered goodness that is a sweet potato fry failed miserably this evening. There is a good possibility that my oil was not hot enough, as I do not yet have a kitchen thermometer. It stands to reason that the fries simply sucked up excess oil as they were limp, flavourless, and simply soggy.


I've never actually made fries before, but the instructions sounded easy: slice up potatoes, fry in batches in hot shortening. Bourdain drooling over horse kidney fat aside, I worked with what I had. I wished for kosher sea salt, but even that wouldn't have saved these fries. I'm not sure if perhaps yams need a different frying method than regular potatoes, or if there is more to the "perfect temperature" than I bargained for. Let's just say it's good I only bought one potato, as the majority ended up in the bin.

But the night was not all a loss- I finally made the bread pudding I mentioned here, and a post on that is soon to follow. Last, but not least, I leave you with this enticing photo, with the promise of a mystery and post. Ooooh, tantalizing!