Curly Fries

Prep Time: 7 minutes                        Cook Time: 10 minutes                   Add to MyFitnessPal

Curly fries - those time-honored savory treats from childhood - are a classic July food. They're also packed with starch, breading, and fried in 10-day-old oil. But dang they taste SO good! And it turns out, they're a piece of cake to make and they can actually be good for you.

They go great with Smye's Catsup

Using this particular spice mixture, these taste nearly identical to those served at a particular fast food restaurant that famously serves roast beef sandwiches - but feel free to play with the spices and make to suit your own tastes.
Now, I should point out that these are not as crispy crunchy as your standard curly fries, they end up closer to the crunch of good hash browns if done according to the 10-minute recipe. If you're looking for that excellent crunch, it's going to take you about an extra hour of cook time, but the solution is simple. After you remove your fries from the broiler, allow your oven to cool down and then preheat to 225F. It's vital that you allow your oven to actually cool down here, don't try the shortcut of setting it to 225F after broiling, your oven is MUCH hotter than this and you'll burn your fries. Once your oven is up to temp, pop them back in for roughly an hour or until desired crunchiness has been attained.

Ingredients:
Kolrabi, purple - 10 oz (or other root vegetable like turnip, parsnip, or even beet)
Olive oil - 1 Tbsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Trader Joes 21 Seasoning Salute - 2 tsp (Costcos Organic No-Salt Seasoning is almost identical)

Preparation:
Firstly, peel your kolrabi, this means using a paring knife given all the knobly bumply bits on a kohlrabi.

To make peeling easier, top and bottom your kohlrabi to yield a stable surface to work from

Once it's peeled, it's time to cut your fries. If you have one, I HIGHLY recommend using a spiralizer to make your fries. If you don't, you can a) buy one at Bed Bath and Beyond for about 20 bucks or b) just do a find julienne cut on your kohlrabi. You won't have curls, but then again, do you really care at this point? I know I do, but I'm still secretly seven years old inside.

If you're going to use the spiralizer, use the widely spaced blades to get an easy to work with fry. Every 5 turns or so, use a knife to cut your fries free, otherwise you end up with the 5-foot-long monster fry that tried to eat my dog once, it wasn't pretty.

Kohlrabi goes in

Fries come out

Quick note about the spiralizer, I HIGHLY recommend either the spirooli or the paderno. They're actually the same patent, spirooli sold it to paderno. It looks cheapy and poorly made, heck, it feels that way when you pick it up. But this thing is robust. I also do recommend you actually spend the money to buy this. You may not care if your fries are curly or not, but you will care about making enough noodles to feed a family of 5 in under 5 minutes when I post my spaghetti recipe in a week or so. And about a million other uses. Trust me, it's worth it. And the same price at BBB as on Amazon (except the paderno, it's quite a bit pricier.)

Anyway, once you've got your fries prepped, it's time to season them. Using a 1-gallon baggie, add your fries, oil, salt, and seasonings. I used to make my own seasoning for this, and I usually do in other recipes, but the 21 seasoning salute/Costco brand is organic and just so darned easy. Seal the bag, leaving a 1 inch opening on one end and inflate, then seal fully. Now shake it real good!

Not cute, but I'm willing to look past that

Turn your broiler on high and move the rack to the second from the bottom position. Line a baking sheet with foil (no silicone mat for this one, never combine silicone with a broiler for more than a minute or two, EVER) and spread your fries out in as close to a single layer as you can. Once your broiler is up to temp (about 5 minutes), slide in your fries and wait about five minutes. Don't open that door, however tempting it might be.

After five minutes, use a spatula to stir/flip/muss your fry pile and return to the broiler for another five minutes or until desired doneness is reached.

Once they're done, pull 'em out and enjoy! They go particularly well alongside catsup and chili lime chicken burgers. This recipe makes 4 servings.

Nutrition (per 1/4 recipe, about 1/2 cup):
Calories: 48
Fat: 3 g
Carbs: 4 g
Protein: 1 g
Sodium: 31 mg