One of my cooking joys is turning someone who claims to not like a particular food.  Shannon is probably the most frequent victim/beneficiary of this pleasure.  I won out against her resistance to dark greens like kale and mustards, and I have recently joined the campaign for the honor of the sweet potato.

The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a member of the botanical family Convolvulaceae that is, I was kinda surprised to learn, commonly known as the Morning Glory Family.  Yep, sweet potatoes are close cousins of Morning Glory flowers.  They’re the only commonly eaten plant of the 1,000 Convolvulaceae species.

And they’re worth eating.  The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a D.C. non-prof that advocates for nutritional awareness, found in its ’92 study of vegetables that the sweet potato is the most nutritious vegetable.  Ever.  I know, that seems crazy, it reminds us of a pumpkin or the third substitution option after curly fries, but it’s true.  Given its fiber, complex carbs, beta-carotene, protein, vitamins C and A, potassium, iron, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, et al, it scored in the Center’s test a numeric value of 184.  The second most healthy vegetable, the humble regular potato, scored only 100 points.

So we’re going to be eating some sweet potatoes in the Leahey home.

And you know I had to come up with some novel ways to prepare them.

First Move: The Peel & The Cut  –  Keep the skins.  A lot of the nutritional value is stored in those skins.  And unless you are, say, peeling apples for a French tart with four-hundred years of history behind it, peeling stuff is, well, kinda like cutting the crusts off your bread.

People like thins shaped like French fries.  I’m down.  I love French fries.  I also love that when you cut your sweet potato into fries you’re maximizing surface space that will become spicy, savory goodness when you move into moves Two, Three, etcetera.

Second Move: The Spice  –  Once you’ve cut your Ipomoea batatas into fries, pile it into a bowl, drizzle with olive oil, and toss with your hands until each fry is lightly coated.

And then spice.  Shannon’s not wild about sweetness invading her veggies, so I used a garam masala I found at the store.  Just coated the guys on all sides.  I’ve also used combos of salt, pepper, chili pepper; salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder; lemon pepper and salt.  Pretty much any spice you want, pour it on so it coats all sides of the fry.

Third Move: The Method  –  Bake.  One of the kitchen facts a lot of folks don’t seem to know is that baking is more often than not just as tasty as frying.  I’m not saying a solid slab of catfish shouldn’t be breaded and dropped in popping oil, but when it comes to homemade fries, baking is going to give you more of what you’re looking for.   It ensures that the maximum amount of spice will remain on your fry.  And it’s a hell of a lot easier to clean up.

Bake your fries at 400 ° for approximately twenty minutes, depending on the thickness of the cut.

Auxiliary Move: The Substitution  –  Shannon’s also got a preference for raw carrots.  She’s just not into the roasted numbers.  But I ended up with a big bag of fantastic-tasting purple carrots from the Farmers Market at Grand Army Plaza and needed to do something with them beyond shaving them onto salads.

So I just peeled them fully and replicated the rest of the sweet potato steps.  For a change of pace, after I spiced them I rolled them in cornmeal, giving them a bit of a crispy, deep-fried crunch once out of the oven.

Shannon couldn’t tell the difference between them and the sweet potatoes.