Recipe: Easy Cheese Hash Browns

breakfastramen

The earliest job that I can remember my dad having when I was a really young child was managing the finances at a company that distributed frozen potato products. In hindsight, we did not get nearly enough free potato goodness to show for it; perhaps my parents never took advantage because making fried potato things was fairly unfamiliar to them at that time, having not lived in the States for all that long. Anyway, I am not sure if it’s because of this, but I have spent most of my life thinking that it was impossible to make hash browns at home. Despite being very experienced with cooking potatoes in a vast array of formats at this point, I always envisioned has browns as something that had to come frozen from the store. Until one day I was experimenting with making a breakfast-y ramen, and looking around the kitchen to see what I could add to build upon the breakfast theme. I had a potato that was sort of past its prime and thought, what have I got to lose? Here’s what I did.

How to Make Cheese Hash Browns

Ingredients

1 small yukon potato, refrigerated
1/4 cup cheddar, grated
potato or corn starch
oil for frying

Procedure

Grate the potato with a box grater, then toss with potato starch until very lightly coated. Combine with grated cheese.

Heat some oil in a non-stick skillet. Add a thin layer of the potato/cheese mixture in, forming the shape/size you want. Pan-fry on both sides until golden.⁣

Enjoy your hash browns however you like. To make the breakfast ramen shown here: Prepare 1 package of SamYang Hot Chicken Flavor Ramen according to the instructions, then toss noodles and sauce with grated cheese until melted. Top with slices of your pork configuration of choice (this is leftover Taiwanese-style braised pork belly, but char siu, Spam, or bacon would be great), hash brown, egg, scallions, and furikake.