Today's Celebration of Fried Potatoes: Hash Browns

As my friend Karen has noted, I typically exhibit a penchant for celebrating the weird and bizarre of the produce world. But that doesn't mean in real life I neglect the world's most popular produce: potato, fried.

 
Yes, I have previously celebrated French fries and roasted potatoes with rosemary and garlic, the latter not technically fried, but bathed in so much oil it might as well be. But another tribute is certainly due. Today's honoree: hash browns.

Zillions of Americans love going to the Waffle House, a big restaurant chain based mainly in the South that is especially well known for its hash browns. The Waffle House has over 2,100 branches, but none in New York. The New Yorkers I know who hail from the South or have discovered the Waffle House while traveling mostly observe a "Don't ask, don't tell" or ""What happens in Georgia stays in Georgia"  stance in their enjoyment of the hash browns. Those who think too much about their pleasure at the Waffle House seem a bit afraid of what they might learn.

Take this question to the official Idaho potato website: 

Q. Dr. Potato, why do I love Waffle House-style hash browns more than ones I make at home? What do they do to the food service version that makes them so good? Are they partially dehydrated? Or maybe seasoned with some kind of chemical? I mean the shredded kind that come in boxes, not the deep-fried QSR formed hash brown.

Here's the answer:

A. Waffle House does use a dehydrated potato (very similar to what you can buy in the stores in the center of the aisle from Idahoan or Basic American) and they use a butter style oil. One of the tricks you can do at home is to lightly oil the surface of the pan, heat it up, and then place the re-hydrated potatoes into the pan, resist turning right away till they start to caramelize. Flip, wait for the potatoes to turn a golden color and then remove and serve.

The website provided a link to a supermarket "premium" hash brown mix that I checked out. Here are its ingredients: IDAHO® POTATOES, VEGETABLE OIL (CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: CANOLA, SOYBEAN, COTTONSEED, SUNFLOWER), SALT, DEXTROSE, ONION POWDER, MONOGLYCERIDES, CALCIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE (PRESERVE FRESHNESS) AND SODIUM BISULFITE (PRESERVE FRESHNESS). CONTAINS: SOY.

You know what I'm going to say next. You can do better. Here's how.

First, and most important: use actual potatoes. Russet potatoes are a good choice.

Wash them. I suggest not peeling the potatoes. (Of course I'd say that.) Oh, all right, you can peel them if you want to.


Spread a thin film of oil on a griddle or cast iron skillet. Turn on the flame to a moderate heat.


Take a clean white cloth (or in the alternative, a cloth that was once white, but then got stained from many rounds of potato juice) and spread it out over a clean counter or big cutting board. 

Using a box grater, grate the potatoes - one big potato makes a nice hash brown; two potatoes make two hash browns, even nicer.
 

I find grating by hand boring, so I recommend listening to some good music while you toil. Take care not to skin your knuckles. You can also use a food processor to grate the potatoes. Sprinkle a bit of salt on the pile of grated potato.
  

 

The next step is key: Squeeze out the potatoes' liquid. The goal is to dehydrate your potatoes so they get a chance to caramelize on the griddle. Roll up your white cloth and squeeze as hard as you can.


Yeah, wring it out some more.


I like to mix in some pepper and paprika in at this point. You can add whatever seasonings you like, just distribute them evenly.




Grab a pile of "dry" grated potatoes, dump them on the grill and flatten them into a patty. Use a double grill or a second skillet if you're doubling your portion.


 

Here's the hard bit. Don't touch the has browns for 15 minutes. Set the timer and mosey off to do something else.


When your timer rings, give the hash browns a flip and - you guessed it - leave them alone for another 15 minutes.

Your home should have a rich, potatoey aroma by now. And beautifully lacy, caramelized potato shreds for your other senses.

You'll just have to make do without the calcium stearoyl lactylate, sodium acid pyrophosphate and the sodium bisulfite.

Waste Not, Want Not

I hate waste, but I have my limits.

I pickled watermelon rinds - once - before I concluded that it was fine to toss them into the compost pile. I think soy sauce makes a better vegetarian soup base than a dubious collection of peels, so my enormous pile of scraps generally go to the compost pile as well, not the stock-in-progress pile.

But if root-to-frond eating, the vegetarian equivalent of snout-to tail -  makes sense, I'm all for it.

My new chum (if not best friend), radish, offers such a package deal.  

The radish's roots are what we think of as "radish," but typically they come attached to some greens. Often those greens look as appealing as as any garden lettuce. And there they are, convenient attached to the vegetable you're already purchasing! 

So if your produce seller asks, "Want me to cut off the tops?" don't absent-mindedly nod yes. It might even be worthwhile to inquire about the greens that your fellow customers requesting be chopped off and discarded. 

But what can you do with the green part of your package deal?

While you ponder your options, give the greens a good clean-up soak. Root vegetables and their attached greens live in soil, and often bring the soil with them wherever they go. Fill a large bowl with water, cut the radish tops off and give them a good soak. Dump out the mud and do it again. Drain and hose them down when you're through. You might be astonished by how much mud is left behind.

Yes, feel free to waste the soil

After you spin or pat the radish greens dry, consider some possibilities:

1) The simplest: Use the greens as you would watercress or arugula. Add them to a salad; bring some brightness to a sandwich; toss them into a soup; or place them as a base underneath a hot, protein-rich food.

2) Be inspired by namul, the marinated vegetable dishes that are part of the banchan often served as appetizers at Korean restaurants. Coat the greens with one or two teaspoons of toasted sesame oil and one tablespoon of soy sauce (feel free to dribble the liquids from their respective bottles and use your well-scrubbed hands to mix). When the marinade is evenly distributed, add one teaspoon of toasted sesame seeds, and if you like, a splash of mirin.

3) Wilt the greens in a very lightly oiled skillet for few minutes. If you're like me, you think a splash of soy sauce makes everything better, so go ahead and add that splash. This is a great use of vegetarian ponzu (citrus) soy sauce.

And what about the radish "bottoms" - you know, radishes?

Start out by making sure the radishes are rid of soil. 

I like to give radishes a haircut - I cut off their rat-tail roots.

Then give them a nice pat-down.

Of course you could use the radish for salads or for lovely garnishes, as I used to do. Lately I've been enjoying the caramelized, salty snack goodness of sauteed radishes. Sauteing the radishes brings out their sweetness - great if you've avoided radishes because you find their raw taste too harsh. I cut the radishes in half and cook them, cut side down, for a relatively long time - 20 minutes or even more - in my trusty cast-iron skillet.

I cover the skillet and keep the flame medium-low. After a while the radishes turn a rosy pink. Keep them there 20 minutes or so and they'll get brown. 

I like to sprinkle them with sea salt right in the pan. There have been times when a friend and I have eaten them directly from the pan, with no pesky, needs-to-be-washed plates getting in the way. Yes, "salty snack goodness" is no misnomer.

Of course, the combo platter - radish tops and bottoms - is another option, a tasty and attractive option.

Radishes are not only dirty, but dirt cheap. A bunch goes for about $1.50 at the Union Square Greenmarket. Many vendors charge just $1 - and with good timing and the slightest interest, you typically can get extra radish greens for free. Pretty astounding.

Yes, I am indeed thinking about the radish.

Double Umami

Are you biased against the humble white button mushroom?

I was.

When I say, "button mushroom," do you think of its more glamorous cousins,

Shitakes from the farmers' market

rich with flavor, or do you think of these rubbery tire bits in a can?

Manufacturer's name omitted to protect the guilty

Do you think of bits of sponge or slime - raw mushrooms - adding nothing good to salads? (And that's without even knowing about the toxic hydrazine in mushrooms that cooking neutralizes.)

No wonder I had some aversion to button mushrooms. 

And yet I loved shiitake mushrooms - fresh from the farmers' market or dried in Chinatown, where they're often known as Chinese black mushrooms. Restaurant dishes that featured wild mushrooms like chanterelles and morels were consistently thrilling, as were portobella "burgers" eaten at restaurants and friends' barbecues, sometimes as the main vegetarian option, and at home. (Portobella or portobello? I'll go with "bella" because the small versions - more on this in a minute - are called Baby Bellas.) And I knew these favored fungi were chock full of wonderful nutritional benefits. Trumpet, Hen of the Woods, oyster - I loved them all. 

Crimini mushrooms helped me bridge the gap. 

Build a bridge with a fungus

First, I learned that "Baby Bella" was basically just a marketing term - portobellas are just more mature criminis. Then I learned that crimini are just slightly more mature and suntanned white button mushrooms.  (What this means practically is, of course, subject to debate.) 

Time for a reputation rehab! 

Last week David Tanis published an ode to this humble and overlooked mushroom in the New York Times. Others have pointed out that button mushrooms share, and sometimes exceed, the health benefits of more exotic mushroom varieties.

Would it help to call them Champignons de Paris, as the French - their original cultivators - do? Professor Brian Wansink of Cornell University has published a lot of amusing and thought-provoking research showing that that people enjoy food more if they think it's fancier, so you could try a re-branding campaign.

Or your could cook the unsung white buttons to give them a leg up. For me, this meant upping the mushrooms' umami quotient.

Umami, sometimes known as the fifth taste fifth taste (in addition to salty, sweet, bitter and sour), is the "pleasant savory taste" based upon glutamates in the food. Mushrooms are rich in umami. So are fermented products like my beloved soy sauce. 

To me, there are few cooked foods that aren't enhanced by a dash or two of soy sauce. I also believe that a good sear in a cast iron skillet is often a great flavor enhancer. (And cooking in a cast iron skillet can also add iron to your diet, by the way.) 

So I started with this,

added some potion (high octane Korean soy sauce diluted with a little water; low-salt would be a good idea if you didn't want to dilute),

Self-tanner?

And next thing you know, my buttons have gotten lacquered.

Why, you're looking positively crimini!

I have to say I was delighted with the result.

The finish line

The mushrooms were great on their own and would be a great topping for toast or pasta. Diced more finely, you could use them for bruschetta, pizza or omlets.You know, whatever you might use "fancy" mushrooms for.