Lately I find that much of my cooking inspiration comes from going out to restaurants with few vegan options and being forced by hunger to order something I wouldn’t ordinarily eat. Last Saturday, after a long day of marching and standing at the Women’s March on Jackson, I wound up with some friends at one of the few places in town that is open at 3pm on a Saturday.
A glance at The Manship’s menu told me that they served no vegetarian entrees, much less vegan, but a very helpful waitress showed me the side dishes I could have as a vegetable plate. One of them was Spanish Potatoes, and it turned out to be one of the best potato dishes I’ve ever had. Crunchy and spicy on the outside, creamy and soft on the inside, each little morsel was a delight.
But. You knew there was a “but,” didn’t you? They were fried. Now, please don’t look at me like that. I’ve never claimed to be perfect, and sometimes, when I’m very hungry and there are no other options, I have tasted fried food. And in my defense, the waitress didn’t mention they were fried, and they weren’t very oily. But I could tell from the texture that these potatoes were fried, not baked.
Of course, I immediately started plotting how to get the same crunchy-outside/creamy-inside without using oil, and I realized right away that this is a job for my new toy, the air fryer. The air fryer works by surrounding the food with circulating hot air, and it allows food–especially potatoes–to get crunchy on all sides a little better than an oven will.
I knew that the secret to the soft interior was to cook the potatoes first, coat them in seasonings, and then air fry them, so I popped them into my Instant Pot to cook. And it worked! My fat-free Spanish potatoes came out delicious, probably as close as possible to the original without oil. The only complaint my husband had was that they were not spicy enough, so be sure to add more hot pepper to the recipe below if you like spicy.
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