Spiral Potatoes

Sometime in July there was a food festival in our village and there was one stall I'd not seen before. They did one thing only - spiral potatoes and I just had to have one, despite Lundulph's tut-tuts.

Basically what it is, an oblong baking potato is run through a spiraliser and a bamboo skewer is stuck through the middle at the same time. It is then deep-fried. Finally, the hungry buyer gets to choose a sauce or spice mixture to sprinkle on top and off she goes.

Unfortunately until we buy a new and bigger house, a spiraliser is completely out of the question, so I bought a tiny little gadget which allegedly would do the same thing, albeit with a bit more elbow grease. I carefully selected narrow baking potatoes as well, since I don't have a deep fryer either, but would need to bake the potatoes. Sadly, the two parts of the little gizmo had been put together backwards, making it completely useless, so I had to throw it away, there was no way to fix it.

Instead, I searched YouTube and found several instructional videos on spiral potatoes and also on Hasselback potatoes, so was able to create the spirals and also use the baking instructions for Hasselback potatoes. Let's face it, they are in effect the same.

So, the skewer went in through the middle of the potatoes and then carefully with a small knife, I cut the spiral. It wasn't as thin as the spiraliser at the stall, but was thin enough.

Once the full length of the potato has been spiralled, carefully stretch along the skewer. I used metal skewers with the thought that they would heat up in the oven and help bake the centre of the potatoes.

While preparing the potatoes, pre-heat the oven along with a deep baking dish to 220 °C. The baking dish should be such that the skewers can be rested on it's edges, so the potato spirals are suspended.

Brush the potatoes with a little oil when you put them in the oven and repeat a few times while they're baking. I also turned the skewers around, though I'm not sure that was actually necessary.

I don't remember how long it took to get them baked, but they were ever so tasty, I almost burnt my tongue trying to eat straight out of the oven. Lundulph was out that evening and got to try one the following night, reheated. This wasn't as good, so he wasn't very impressed, but they were looooovely!