If you’re looking for the perfect side dish to spice up your meals, look no further than these Moroccan Sweet Potato Fries with a Cucumber Raita dipping sauce. The fries get tossed in a crunchy cornmeal coating, along with the popular Moroccan spice, Ras El Hanout. It’s a secret spice mixture that can have up to 30 different spices in it, and each spice merchant has their own blend. So the flavour will always be unique. The variety we bought has a bit of a curry flavour, bringing in a bit of heat, sweetness, but with a complexity you don’t get from a regular curry powder. Katherine bought some in Calgary, but you can order there same one online here. That said, yellow curry powder would also be great here. Paired with the cooling cucumber raita, this is a winning combo!
As we said earlier, to pair with the fries, we made a simple cucumber raita. We’re mixing cultures today, but that’s alright, because it works! Raita is an Indian yogurt condiment that has a vegetable component. This can be anything, but we went with the popular cucumber raita, since it works so well to cool down any heat from the Ras El Hanout. It only takes 5 minutes to do, so can quickly be whipped up while the fries bake.
Moroccan Sweet Potato Fries with Cucumber Raita
Ingredients
Sweet Potato Fries
- 4 large sweet potatoes peeled and cut in home fry shapes (1 1/2 cm thick)
- 1 tbsp Ras El Hanout
- 3 tbsp cornmeal
- 7 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- flaky sea salt
Cucumber Raita
- 1 cup plain whole yogurt
- 2 1/2 tbsp fresh mint chopped
- 1 small clove garlic crushed
- 1/2 tsp flaky sea salt
- 1/2 tsp cumin toasted in a pan
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/2 cup cucumber grated and drained (1/2 cup packed)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, add the oil, cornmeal and Ras El Hanout, and stir to combine. Add the sweet potato, and toss until all fries have an even coating of cornmeal and spice. Bake in the oven, rotating the pans and stirring the fries gently, for about 25-30 minutes, until well browned and crispy.
- While the fries are cooking, prepare the raita. Start by grating the cucumber and and transferring to a sieve to press out the liquid. Crush the garlic, toast the cumin, chop your mint and then stir all ingredients together in a bowl. Serve alongside the sweet potato fries for dipping.
The recipe is credited to Nicole and Katherine – The former owner of SaltwaterDaughter.com.
