Air Fryer Jollof-Spiced Potato Wedges

You don't argue about jollof rice in West Africa unless you mean it. The dish — rice simmered down in a base of blended tomato, red bell and scotch bonnet pepper, onion, and warm spice until it takes on a deep, smoky red — is the centerpiece of every party from Lagos to Accra, and the Nigeria-versus-Ghana debate over who makes it best is conducted with the seriousness of foreign policy. The flavor that's worth fighting over is the base: smoky, tomato-sweet, a little fierce.

That base is what these wedges chase. This isn't jollof rice, and I won't pretend it is — it's a potato wearing jollof's spice wardrobe, which is a fair and tasty thing to be. The tradeoff against deep-fried chips is the usual one: you trade a little of the oil-fried shatter for a wedge that's genuinely crisp outside and fluffy inside on a couple of spoonfuls of oil. Soak the potatoes, dry them like you mean it, and don't crowd the basket.

Everything here is whole food you can name — potatoes, oil, spice. The "clean eating" pitch needs no sermon; it's just a good side dish that happens not to come from a freezer bag.

Give the wedges room to brown in the basket we default to; packed wedges steam each other soft.