by Sarah Plowright-Williams, Kitchen Store Specialist
It’s no secret that veggies can be boring, especially for children. If your children are like I used to be, they look on anything green with suspicion and if it’s purple, well it must be from another planet. Purple can only be good if it’s in the form of clothes, namely a pretty party dress!
Spiralizers make vegetables fun to eat and they allow us to make healthier options; instead of adding the calories with pasta, make zucchini noodles with your favorite sauce instead. Oh, if only they’d had spiralizers in the 70’s, what a veggie fan I would have been……
In our test kitchen this week we put the KitchenAid spiralizing attachment through its paces. Sweet potatoes were our veggie of choice and everyone voted for spiral fries.
Gather The Supplies
KitchenAid Spiralizer Attachment
Silpat Mat
Pinch Bowls
Sheet Pans
To Prepare
It helps if you choose a fairly long thin potato. Peel and cut off the ends. Attach your blade of choice. The KitchenAid offers 5: a fine and medium spiral blade, two slicing blades, and a peeler. We put the two spiral blades to the test.
It was super simple to use, just attach the potato to the vegetable mount and start the motor. The potatoes made perfect spirals in seconds and it was fun!
Cut & Bake
We cut the spirals into shorter lengths for ease of eating, misted with extra virgin oil and sprinkled with salt, pepper and the Summit Spice Ancho Chipotle Chili Blend.
We prepared two sheets; one with parchment paper and the other with a Silpat silicone mat, and laid the fries in a single layer.
Using the Jenn-Air True Convection Oven in our test kitchen for baking would give us the optimum conditions to crisp up the fries. True or European convection ovens are different than regular convection ovens in that they have a third heating element along with the fan which makes the temperatures more uniform in turn making dishes sear and caramelize better, making pastries lighter and flakier and the cooking time is reduced.
We baked the fries at 425F for about 20 minutes. Both the thin spiral and the larger spirals were very successful.
There was no noticeable difference between the sheets, so the parchment and Silpat both worked equally well. I’m now a spiralizing convert and can’t wait to try zucchini noodles with fresh Kodiak scallops and a white wine sauce!
No KitchenAid? No problem- try these other spiralizing products:
Microplane's Handheld Spiral Cutter with both a small and large barrel accommodates both long, slim and thick vegetables.
Or, this Tabletop Spiral Vegetable Slicer suctions to the table and has three blade insert choices so you can make fine spirals for veggie pasta, large spirals for fries, and flat spirals for pies and chips!