Sluttishly Savoury: Sweet Potato Fries

One of my favorutie parts of travelling is the eating. Sure, the fun times and sunshine are all pretty fun but trying out new delicious foods is the best. So, I was pretty delighted on my first day in Canada. I was suffering from jet lag and in desperate need of diner food. I needed a thick chocolate milkshake and something deep fried to make the grogginess feel better - comfort food is one of North America's areas of expertise. It was there, at the diner,  that I discovered the genius idea of sweet potato fries. How have I never heard of sweet potato fries? Why is the UK not filled with diners serving sweet potato fries? People, we are sorely missing out on sweet potato fries in this country.

Of course, like any good Domestic Slut I immediately set about discovering how to reproduce the delicious sweet potato fries experience as soon as I landed back in England. And actually, it was a little harder than I thought it would be. 

Sweet potatoes are not as starchy as your standard potato. In fact, a sweet potato is not actually a potato. The genetic make up of it is not that conducive to making fries. I tried just plain old frying in the first instance and they came out all soggy. I tried roasting them up in the oven and the ends were burnt. So after some Internet research and lots of experimenting I found my favourite method is to lightly coat the sweet potato fries in cornflour before shallow frying in super hot oil. Serve it the Canadian way with a large dollop of sweet chilli mayo and you have perfect comfort food.

Sweet Potato Fries

You will need:

• Sweet Potato, sliced into long thin batons
• 1-2 tbsp Cornflour
• 200ml Sunflower Oil, for frying
• Salt and Pepper, to season (I also tried this with fajita seasoning and it was great)  

for the Sweet Chilli Mayo

• 2 tbsp Mayonnaise
• 1/2 tbsp Sriracha Chilli Sauce

Make it!

• soak the sweet potato batons in a bowl of cold water for at least 1/2 an hour. remove from the water and pat dry with some kitchen roll.
• place the cornflour in a large bowl and toss the sweet potato batons a few at a time. shake off the excess cornflour and set aside on a plate (I actually used my finger to wipe off excess cornflour on some of them).
• heat the oil in a deep-sided frying pan until smoking hot.
• carefully add the sweet potato to the frying pan and fry for a few minutes using a spatula to make sure the batons are not sticking together and rotate to make sure even frying.
• to make the sweet chilli mayo - simply stir the two ingredients together until combined.
• as the sweet potato fries start to turn golden remove with a slotted spoon onto a few sheets of kitchen roll. 
• season with lots of salt and pepper and toss together.
• serve with sweet chilli mayo or your favourite dip.