Rutabaga Fries

 

It occurred to me that I have a few vegetable French Fry recipes, and this would be a good place to corral them all and index a French Fry Repository, so here goes:

• Oven Fried Potatoes
•  Sweet Potato Fries
• Oven Fried Parsnips
• Oven Fried Zucchini Sticks

I suppose the theme is that you can make French Fries out of many kinds of vegetables, and not just root veggies.  But today, I decided on a lark to make oven fries out of the oddest of root vegetables, a rutabaga. It's referred to as a yellow turnip in some European countries, but the rutabaga is actually a hybrid of cabbage and the more traditional white turnip. Its texture is less dense than a turnip and the flavor is actually something closer to a potato with an earthy aftertaste.  It may be the closest you can get to a low-carb friendly facsimile to the all-American French Fry, which is an oxymoron if there ever was one.

In the case of rutabagas, cut them to the size of your typical McDonald's French Fry, and your oven time will be about 35 minutes.  You can go 40-45 minutes if you want them crispier.

A lot of Internet recipes for this dish have a wide variation of spices that can be used, although I give credit to the Good Housekeeping website for this blend.  One thing you do not want to do, however, regardless of what any recipe tells you, is to put salt on the rutabagas before they're cooked.  Salt will leach the water out of any raw vegetable and so should be withheld until after the fries come out of the oven.

Ingredients
2 medium rutabagas, cut into 1/3" wide strips
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp powered thyme
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
fine sea salt to taste

The Recipe
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and ensure a rack is in the top slot.

After peeling the rutabagas with a vegetable peeler, cut them into 1/3" inch slices.  Then cut each slice into 1/3" wide strips.

Put the oil, garlic powder, thyme and cayenne pepper in a mixing bowl, and stir to combine.  Put the rutabaga strips in the bowl and using your hands, toss to coat them all thoroughly.

Lay the fries out on a sheet pan or cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil. Laying them out in rows will make it easier to flip them.

Bake 35-45 minutes, flipping them over half-way through.

Dust with fine sea salt immediately after they come out of the oven.  

Serve with a 50/50 blend of sour cream and horseradish, or a blend of two parts ketchup and one part horseradish with a pinch of chili powder.