Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries

I cannot resist French fries, but I personally think that baked French fries taste fabulous and better than fried ones. These days, sweet potato fries are all the rage and in keeping with the trend, I have a recipe here for making them. However, instead of deep frying the sweet potatoes, I will show you how to savour them the way I like it; baked in an oven.   The baking time would depend on how thick you have cut the potatoes or sweet potatoes.  As far possible, cut them up evenly and place them in a single layer on the baking sheet.  Some of you may wonder why I am adding sugar – well, the sugar helps to caramelize the sweet potato and intensify the sweetness.  However, it is optional and if you are baking potato fries, leave out the sugar totally.

 750 g – 1000 g sweet potatoes or potatoes

60 g olive oil

1 tablespoon caster sugar

2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon Chinese Five-Spice Powder, chilli powder, garam masala or Cajun seasoning

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 220°C.
2. Peel the sweet potatoes and then with a sharp knife cut into halves, lengthwise.  Then cut them into wedges, shoestrings or disks.
3. Place the sweet potatoes into a mixing bowl and add the oil and combine well.
4. Sprinkle with salt, sugar and spices.  Mix and combine well till all the pieces of sweet potato are coated with the ghee and spices.
5. Spread the sweet potatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with non-stick baking paper.
6. Bake for 20 minutes and remove the baking sheet from the oven. Turn over the sweet potato pieces.  You need to do this to prevent the sugar from getting burnt. If you are not adding the sugar, you do not have to turn the potato pieces.
7. Put them back into the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes or until browned.
8. Cool them for about 5 minutes before serving.