Sweet potato home fries
Instructions:
- 6 medium sweet potatoes (about 21⁄2 pounds);
- 3 tablespoons extravirgin olive oil;
- 1 teaspoon coarse salt or kosher salt;
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary;
- 2 to 4 tablespoons honey.
- Preheat the oven to 375 F.
- Peel the potatoes and cut into uniform 3⁄4-inch cubes. Toss with the oil to coat and spread in a single layer on a foil-lined rimmed baking sheet. Roast until tender when pierced with a knife and the edges are beginning to brown, about 30 minutes.
- Season the potatoes with the salt while they are still hot so that it will stick. Sprinkle with the rosemary and drizzle with the honey to taste. Serve warm, although they are fine at room temperature.
- What else works? You can cook nearly any root vegetable, or a medley of roots and tubers, with this technique. Good candidates for this method are beets, turnips, carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, pumpkin, and winter squash.
- Tips and Techniques. When deciding how much of an herb sprig to use, ask yourself how much of it is chewable. Nearly all of any herb plant is edible, but not all of it is necessarily pleasant to eat. For herbs with soft stems (such as parsley and cilantro), you can use all of the leaves, the short stems that hold the leaves, and as much of the larger stems as are tender. You do not have to painstakingly pluck off individual tiny leaves. For herbs with hard, deciduous stems (such as rosemary), you obviously do not want to be adding sticks to your food, so strip off the leaves.