March 25, 2011

It's Food Friday!

The theme of this week's Food52 competition was foods which you set aflame - on purpose. I am not a fancy cook. I have never cooked Bananas Foster en Flambé, and I still don't know what it is at the Greek restaurant which causes such a flutter and commotion and flames. I have on many occasions burnt the food I was trying to prepare in a loving fashion for my family. They can probably roll their eyes and enumerate notable examples, but that is another story. For many years I did not prepare Hash Browns. Instead I served Hash Blacks. Danny will remember them well. And I hope, fondly.
But I have clawed my way up and out of that particular pit, and must credit Ruth Reichl with this improvement in my rudimentary kitchen skills. She included this recipe for Hash Browns from The Palm restaurant in her memoir Garlic and Sapphires. It is divine.

8 small waxy potatoes
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 small onion, very finely diced
Salt and Pepper
Coarse salt for sprinkling on top
Boil potatoes for about 10 minutes, or until they are cooked about halfway through. Drain, and allow them to cool to warm;Chop into about 1-inch squares.
Melt the butter over medium heat in a well-seasoned 8-to 10-inch cast-iron skillet. Remove about a quarter of the butter and set aside. Add the potatoes to the skillet, forming them into a flat cake and pressing down on it with a spatula. Cook, uncovered, over medium heat for about 6 minutes, until a good crust has formed on the bottom. Keep pressing with the spatula, and run it around the edges a bit so the potatoes don't stick.
Scatter the diced onions over the top, along with a good shake of salt and a good grinding of pepper. Remove the skillet from the heat and cover with a large plate; leave for 2 minutes, allowing the potatoes to steam. Using oven mitts, hold the plate and skillet together, and invert together, so the potatoes drop onto the plate.
Put the skillet back over medium heat and add the remaining melted butter. Carefully slide the entire potato cake into the skillet, trying not to break it. Add more salt and pepper, turn the heat up to medium high, and brown the potatoes for another 5 minutes, until a crust forms.
Slide the potato cake onto a hot platter, sprinkle with the coarse sea salt, and serve immediately.
No more Hash Black woes.

Charles sometimes makes breakfast for Camilla. I sit with the New York Times and my Diet Coke and squint at his efforts. (Sometimes a little too much Prosecco has been consumed the night before, and we are not at our loveliest.) He does love chopping up those potatoes and whistling "Breakfast Dinner and Tea" from Gilbert and Sullivan. No wonder William is pining for a small cottage in Wales. No wonder Camilla sleeps late!

“There is no use trying, said Alice; one can't believe impossible things. I dare say you haven't had much practice, said the Queen. When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
-Lewis Carroll