Oven Fry Salvation

The Sunday afternoon tour de frigo yielded some randomness: a potato, eight ounces of sliced crimini mushrooms (a.k.a. "baby bellas"), a handful of parsley, some bacon, and some chicken leg quarters I'd set in a souvlaki marinade (lemon juice, olive oil, onion powder, garlic, oregano, black pepper, chicken bouillon) a couple of days ago. The bacon was rendered, the fungi fried in the resulting fat and rejoined with the cooked bacon and some chopper parsley. The chicken went on the grill, fifteen minutes per side. The potato was the testbed for a new recipe of oven fry.

I had never actually made a successful oven fry. I used to get either cinders or limp, greasy wedges that went in the trash. Imagine my glee at getting these things sort of right. The key to this recipe seems to be the pre-cooking of the potatoes and the fine coat of corn starch they get before heading into a hot oven. Hats off to America's Test Kitchen for the recipe.

16 oz russet potatoes, cut into wedges. The wedges I used were 1/16 slices- basically, half a potato, half the halves, half the quarters, then half the eighths.
5 tblsp canola or vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tblsp corn starch
1 tsp black pepper
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder

1) Preheat oven to 475. In big bowl, microwave the garlic in the oil for a minute or two.
2) Spoon 3-4 tablespoons of the garlic oil into a rimmed baking sheet. Roll the oil around the baking sheet until it is coated with the garlic oil.
3) Add potatoes to garlic and oil in the bowl, toss to coat potatoes. Cover in saran wrap, microwave 2-3 minutes, toss potatoes again, microwave 2-3 more minutes. The edges of the wedges should be just opaque.
4) America's Test Kitchen expects you to magically separate the garlic from the potatoes, as the garlic will burn in the oven. I'm not sure how I could have done that exactly. I just spooned the potatoes out of the garlic and oil then wiped the remaining garlic and oil out of the bowl with paper towels. I got most of it, I suppose.
5) Mix corn starch, pepper, salt, and garlic powder. Gently toss hot potatoes with this mixture until the potatoes are well coated.
6) Lay the potatoes down on the baking sheet in a single layer, put in oven. Cook for 12 minutes, then flip the potatoes, then cook for 12 more. Watch them after ten minutes. America's Test Kitchen said to cook them for fifteen minutes per side, but if I did that they'd have burnt. I did 12 minutes on one side and 11 minutes on the other. And yes, any garlic remaining on the potatoes did turn black. I think next time I'll just use the garlic powder. Still, deep brown, intensely crispy oven spuds.