Jamaican Sweet Potato Wedges & Sauces

Sweet potato fries or wedges are wonderful and they are well known in Jamaica, where they are often baked, not fried. Good fresh red or orange sweet potatoes are commonly used, and jerk seasoning, a Jamaican specialty, is a good way to add flavor to these crispy outside, soft and creamy inside sweet potato pieces.   

Ingredients (3 to 4 servings):

 

1 pound sweet potatoes (red or orange flesh), peeled

2 to 3 tablespoons vegetable oil, canola oil or sunflower oil

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3 or 4 tablespoons jerk seasoning, store bought or homemade*

 

Cut the peeled sweet potatoes into wedges or narrower fries, if you prefer, and put them into a bowl, add vegetable oil and toss to coat the sweet potatoes. Stir together the jerk seasoning and cornstarch in a cup or small bowl, then sprinkle the mixture over the sweet potatoes and toss the wedges again to be sure all of the wedges get some of the spices. Let the wedges sit while you prepare to bake them. Begin to heat the oven to 400 F. Line a baking sheet with foil and lay the sweet potato wedges out on the baking sheet. When the oven is hot, place the tray in the oven and bake the wedges for about 30 to 40 minutes, turning the wedges once at the 18 minute mark (you may have to adjust the time according to how thick you cut the sweet potato wedges/fries). Check to be sure the sweet potatoes are done with a fork or a knife. They should be fairly crispy. Serve with curry aioli** or perhaps some sweet and spicy mango sauce: remove the flesh of one not quite ripe mango (slightly larger than a baseball in size) and add it to a blender or food processor. Remove the stem and seeds from one scotch bonnet chili pepper (or habanero chili) and add it to the blender/processor. Add 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice, 1 quarter inch sliced round of onion (that is, the whole slice and all its rings), 1 large clove of garlic, 1 teaspoon white vinegar and 3 teaspoons honey. Blend/process until smooth. 

 

* To make your own dry jerk seasoning mix, here is the link:  https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2021/12/jamaican-jerk-seasoning-dry.html

 

** For curry aioli, here is the link:  https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2022/01/curry-aioli.html

 

 Some sweet potato wedges with mango sauce and curry aioli ...

 

WORD HISTORY:

Isolate (isolated)-This word is related to "isle," a word borrowed by English from French, which had it from Latin, but the ultimate origin of which is unknown. Neither "isolate" nor "isle" is related to "island," a word from the Germanic roots of English, which began to have the 's' inserted in its spelling in the 1500s in imitation of "isle." "Isolate" goes back to the Latin noun "insula," which meant "island," but as noted, where this comes from is unknown, although a form such as "in salo," meaning "in salt water;" that is, "in the sea," has been proposed. From "insula" came the Latin adjective "insulatus," meaning "make into or like an island, island-like," and this gave Italian "isolato," meaning "lonely, cut off from (thus, 'isolated')," and this was borrowed by French as "isole," with the same meaning. English borrowed the word and rendered it as "isolated" in the mid 1700s. English dropped the ending to form the verb "isolate" in the 1780s/1790s, but kept the adjectival form "isolated" as the participle form of the verb. The further meaning of "to quarantine" for the verb, "quarantined" for the adjective, and "(a) quarantine" in the noun form "isolation," seem to date from the late 1800s. The noun form "isolation"  seems to have been borrowed from French around 1800, where it had developed just a few years before from "isole," although there is a case to be made that it simply developed as such in English, but with the French inspired ending, itself from -tion, cion, which were derived from Latin "(t)io."    

Jamaican Jerk Seasoning (Dry)

Jamaica is located some 90 miles or so south of Cuba in the Caribbean Sea. Jamaica gained its independence from Great Britain in the early 1960s, although Queen Elizabeth II is the queen of this island nation, and she is represented there by her appointed governor-general, but Jamaica has its own governing system and prime minister. It is tough to think of Jamaica without thinking of reggae music, musician Bob Marley and Olympic runner Usain Bolt.  

 

Jamaica is famous for "jerk" cooking; that is, foods, usually meat, especially chicken, that is marinated with a spice rub and/or liquid marinade, and then grilled or roasted. Foods prepared this way in Jamaica are spicy hot, as they contain hot chili peppers, including the famous "scotch bonnets," named after their shape, but which might make you flip your bonnet from the intense heat they can produce. I've given my version of the dry spice/herb rub here, and I may soon do a version of the liquid marinade, which uses scotch bonnet chilies. Of course, you can adjust the heat level up or down to your own preference with these types of spice mixtures. 

 

Ingredients:

 

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 tablespoon garlic powder

2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper

2 teaspoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons dried thyme 

2 teaspoons ground allspice

1 1/2 teaspoons sweet smoked Spanish paprika

2 teaspoons dried parsley

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground red chili pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons dried red pepper flakes

 

Add the ingredients to the container you will use for the seasoning, put the lid on and shake the container until everything is well mixed together. Shake the container again before each usage of the seasoning. 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Felt-This is the noun for the type of fabric, as in "felt-tip or felt-tipped pen." It is related to "filter," a word borrowed by English from Latin (with French influence and reinforcement), with Latin having borrowed the base of the word from Germanic, and it is related to "pelt," the verb form meaning "to hit or beat," plus, "to hit with objects thrown, launched or fired in some way," a word from Latin long ago, going back to Old English, and it is related to the second part of "anvil," a word from the Germanic roots of English. "Felt" goes back to one of the Indo European roots, "pel" (there are several with varied meanings), with the idea of "beat, hit, beat down;" thus also, "compress." This gave Old Germanic "felt(az)," with the same meanings, and this gave the West Germanic branch of Germanic "feltaz/filtiz," meaning "wool or wool combined with other fur beaten until compressed into a fabric." This gave Old English "felt," where it has remained ever since. Relatives in the other Germanic languages: German has "Filz," Low German has "Filt," West Frisian "filt," Dutch "vilt," Danish "filt" (from Low German), Swedish "filt" (also borrowed from Low German, seemingly with the initial meaning of  "felt," but with the wool fabric meaning coming to mean "blanket," although that meaning seems to have also been in Low German).