Sweet potato and parsnip oven fries (B)
I cut two parnips and a (peeled) sweet potato as thinly as I could, placed on a cookie sheet and tossed with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, then baked at 400 degrees. The small parsnips started to get crispy way before the large rounds of sweet potatoes (especially since the sweet potato had way more water than the parsnips). I kept pulling the crispy pieces off and putting the sheet back in the oven. And the smaller sweet potato slices went from crisp to totally black burnt quite quickly, so I lost a few that way. The fries were quite tasty, especially the very crisp parsnips (I’m not sure I’ve ever “fried” them before). However, clearly if I make this again I need to get my sizes more even, with the parsnip pieces larger than the sweet potatoes. Maybe I’ll even try again today for lunch!
Okay, I tried it today with the sizes a bit more even, but still there was enough variation for some sweet potatoes slices to turn black while others were totally soft. My guess is using more oil would help things cook more evenly?
A third try rather than cutting the veggies into round slices I diced them pretty fine, so they’re much more even. I started them off in my cast iron pan on the stovetop with a bit of canola oil spray, then when i had them all cut up added a little salt and pepper, and put them in the oven at 400 degrees. They got a bit dried out but definitely not burnt. The combination is really quite nice. The parsnip cuts the sweetness of the sweet potatoes quite a bit, but both flavors come through quite well.
Rating: B
Derek: B+
