The Door-to-Door Meat Salesman of Endocrine Test Week

Friday is the endocrine and reproductive health exam. I was sitting in a classroom studying when I get a call from Erin:
"Chris, what are your plans for dinner?"
This is always a good sign, because it means some sort of awesome dinner is about to be proposed...this goes double for a test week when the answer is usually "I'll probably just microwave a lean pocket, then out of the need to stress eat, microwave two more."

Apparently a meat salesman (think Omaha Steaks) had a box full of meat that needed selling, and in a last ditch effort to meet a bonus quota, sold it to her at cost. Tonight was gonna be burgers.

What goes great with burgers? Pretty much any type of potato really. I like burger places with multiple potato options, like the Vortex. There you can get fries, tater tots, or sweet potato fries. But why sweet potato fries and not sweet potater tots? Clearly something needed to be done. I was almost certain the idea of the sweet potato tot had already been done somewhere. A quick google search yielded no recipe ideas, but a few pictures and references to Atlanta's own FLIP Burger Boutique (still gotta try it). Judging from the pictures, it seems they cheat a bit by serving little cylinders of tempura fried sweet potato. Their cheatery cheater version looked delicious, but I wouldn't really call that a tot...more of a glorified steak fry. It's gotta have that shredded hash-browny texture to it. So I'd have to take matters into my own hands.

Bought a few organic jewel sweet potatoes, shredded them with my food processor, shredded in a bit of shallot just for kicks, added an egg and some flour, a bit of salt, switched to the processing blade, gave the whole thing a quick pulse and voila:


Unappealing sweet potato tot "batter." I tried dishing them into small sizes and then forming them, but they would just fall apart. I decided to dish out individual portions, freeze them, and then fry them. In retrospect this was completely unnecessary, because I thought they'd be more frozen, but that wasn't necessary. Just pop the whole bowl into the freezer until the mix is cool and easier to work with (or fridge if you have more time...but like I said before...test week...I don't have time to sit around waiting for my homemade sweet potato tots to cool down in the fridge.)

Give 'em a deep fry until they're pretty darn brown in 360 degree oil:


Sprinkle on a bit of salt and enjoy.


There you have it, no need to make the tough choice between tater tots and sweet potato fries, when you can have the best of both worlds.