Mock Homefries

One of my favourite things I remember my dad making when I was a kid is homefries. It’s such an amazing comfort food. I love them when they’re cooked down and browned. When doing low carb potatoes are one of the big no-no’s, which leaves homefries off the menu. However, the other day I read an article from a woman who said she had made some out of radishes. Now, I’m gonna be honest. I tried a bit of a radish once at my Grandma’s and hated it. I’ve never had it since! After reading the article though, I kept pondering whether it was possible that such a gross (in my opinio anyways) little vegetable could taste nearly as good as potatoes if cooked the right way. What better way to find out than to try I figured!

I ran to Walmart and picked up a 16 oz bag of radishes. It was nice because they were pre-cut. Anything to make it easier, lol!

After rinsing them all I started to slice them fairly thin. After the fact I realized I could have used my food processor to slice them all uniformly, which is what I would suggest if you have access to a food processor. However, I spent ages slicing them…I’m no chef, lol! In the pan I put about a tablespoon of smart balance margarine and about a teaspoon of olive oil to heat up. Meanwhile I chopped up one onion into fairly big chunks. I figured if I hated the radishes, at least I could pick out and eat the fried onions (ever the optimist). 

I threw the onions in first to get a little soft, but I’m not sure if doing that was really necessary. It’s just what the chefs on cooking shows always do, so I followed suit :-)  After a minute or two I threw the radishes in. I should mention I did not peel the radishes. I don’t even know if those little things peel, but I wasn’t about to sit and do it even if they did! I threw in some garlic powder, Spanish paprika, salt and pepper and let them cook.

As I said before, I like my homefries nice and brown and really cooked down, so I did the same with the radish homefries, or tried to. They don’t brown down exactly the same as potatoes. All in all I’d say I cooked them about 20 minutes or so over medium-high heat. If you like your homefries a little less done I would say it would only take about 15 minutes or so.

These were taken at about 15 minutes or so into cooking them. You can see they’re not quite browning like I would have liked so I kept on cooking them.

All plated up and ready to eat with some peameal bacon for good measure!

It turns out they were pretty tasty. The spiciness that I remember from them the time I had eaten them raw was no longer there. The texture was very similar to a potato. I ate the whole plate of them and there was only one or two bites that I thought, “oh, yeah, these are radishes, not potatoes”. I would definitely make them again if I was craving homefries, but probably won’t be having them on a regular basis. They were a little too time consuming in relation to what the finished product was. Though, to be fair, had I used the food processor for the slicing my time would have been greatly reduced.

My final verdict is, they’re definitely worth making if your really feening for  homefries. They’re also a great way to get in a whole pile of veggies first thing in the morning, which is a definite plus! Apparently somewhere out there is a recipe for homefries using jicama, so I’ll try that one at some point and make a decision as to which is better then.