Do You Want Fries With That?

This is all Amy‘s fault.

From the moment I laid eyes on this, I knew I had to try this recipe. How could I not? See, my favorite food in the world next to cheese has got to be potatoes in any form, and when I saw those crisp, delicious looking beauties, I developed a craving for fries that just would not go away. My first thought was to make steak frites, but since we’ve been going so heavy on the meat lately, I decided on moules frites as a lighter option.

I followed the recipe for the fries pretty closely, substituting olive oil for canola because we didn’t have any on hand, and dividing the potatoes over two half-sheet pans. One pan (the one with more wear on it) turned out perfectly crisp, beautiful fries and the other… well, not so much. Those fries stuck to the bottom of the pan, to the sides of the pan, to each other, to anything they could stick to. They were pretty mangled and fugly after I finally turned them all, but I pressed on.

I ended up leaving the fries in the oven for an extra 10 minutes (for a total cooking time of one hour), and when I pulled them out, I had one tray of perfect specimens, and a second tray of perfectly cooked fries that were not going to win any beauty contests, but were just as tasty as their more attractive brethren.

The garlicky topping, I must say, is genius. If you make these fries, do not skip that step. And if you like fries, do try this recipe, because even though my go at them wasn’t all smooth sailing, they were worth the frustration, and I definitely plan to make them again and again.