Gordon Ramsey’s &%#$*)(@! American Hash Browns and $%$#@!@ Eggs

Gor­don Ram­sey says the world’s best break­fasts come from Amer­i­ca. Since we eat break­fast for break­fast, lunch and din­ner, I think he’s on to something.

  • Ingre­di­ents:
  • “Waxy” pota­toes (i.e., pota­toes with a low starch con­tent: war­ba, fin­ger­ling, Yukon gold
  • Yel­low onion
  • Salt
  • But­ter
  • Eggs
  • Thick-sliced bacon
  • Light olive oil
  • Pep­per
  • Brown sug­ar
  • Cayenne pep­per (or maybe some Tabas­co or chipo­tle pow­der or what­ev­er your pre­ferred heat)

Tip:

You might have noticed there are no quan­ti­ties list­ed up there. This is a seat-of-your-pants recipe; you just sling stuff around until it looks right. The only quan­ti­ty-type info here is that you want about one part onion to two parts potato.

Shred your pota­toes and onions, with about one part onion to two parts pota­to, like I said right up there.

Stir up your shred­ded onion-spud mix­ture, sea­son well with salt, then stir it up some more.

Put a colan­der over a large bowl or your sink, and let your salty/onion/spud mix sit for about 15 min­utes to let the salt draw water out of the onion and spuds.

Squeeze the spud mix­ture with your hands, then squeeze some more, then keep on squeez­ing as much as you can before your hands get exhaust­ed. The more water you squeeze out, the crisper and more deli­cious your hash browns will be. Don’t nobody like wet, limp hash browns!

Sea­son with salt, pep­per, and what­ev­er your hot­ness pow­der pref­er­ence and stir yet again. Set aside and pre­heat your oven to 350°.

Fire up your stove­top under an oven-safe skil­let; get the skil­let scream­ing hot before you add any­thing to it.

Once the skil­let has reached instant-3rd-degree-burn sta­tus, put in enough light olive oil to just cov­er the bottom.

Tip:

You want light olive oil for this because it has a high­er smoke point than vir­gin or extra-vir­gin olive oil. If you don’t have light olive oil, any oil with a high smoke point will do. I’ve made hash browns with bacon fat, but it tends to be too greasy for me. YMMV.

Sprin­kle your spud/onion/seasoning mix­ture in the skil­let until it cov­ers the skillet’s bottom.

Use a spat­u­la or spoon to spread and smoosh down the spud mix­ture even­ly in the skillet.

As your hash browns start to siz­zle and caramelize, put lit­tle dabs of but­ter around the edge so it melts down and helps the pota­toes get crispy.

To flip the hash browns, put a plate face­down on the skil­let and flip the skil­let and plate togeth­er, then slide the hash browns back into the skillet.

When the hash browns are close to being done, remove from heat and put some eggs on top.

How many eggs? Depends on how big your skil­let is. If you pre­fer scram­bled eggs, by all means scram­ble them first.

Pop the skil­let into the pre­heat­ed oven for 6‑ish to 8‑ish minutes.

Mean­while, heat up anoth­er skil­let for your bacon. Put olive oil, brown sug­ar, salt, pep­per and but­ter in the skil­let. Stir con­stant­ly until the sug­ar is melted.

Fry up your bacon in the melt­ed butter/sugar/other stuff mixture.

Remove the hash browns and eggs from the oven. Sea­son the eggs with a bit more cayenne or what­ev­er hot stuff you like, then plate and top with the bacon.