Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Eggs and 'Taters 2

I know I have eggs and 'taters already, but it is not the typical eggs and 'taters that The Good Husband eats. That version is a "low fat" version of this original recipe.

Cooking eggs and 'taters is really more about technique than anything else. It has taken me 6 years to finally master the 'taters so they are even in the same ballpark as The Good Grandma's 'taters. TGH was raised by TGG who made every single thing from scratch and also made eggs and 'taters better than anyone else.

You would think that frying 'taters wouldn't be all that hard, right? I mean you get those little "Southern Style Hash browns" or "Country Fries" when you go to any good diner (or after a night of drinking so heavily you will eat at Denny's). How hard can it be to cube and fry up some 'taters? Well, as it has taken me six years to finally get the 'taters how they should be, I can tell you that it is harder than it looks. Kinda like html code.

The trick to making 'taters the way TGH eats is to not really fry the 'taters. Seems odd, doesn't it? You mean you don't really fry your fried 'taters? Yes. Yes, I do.

See, I used to crank the heat up to high and wait for the cast iron skillet to get super hot and then I would fry those little suckers up until they were a deep golden brown and crunchy. But, alas, that was not the way TGH likes his eggs and 'taters. So after one weekend at TGG's I finally cracked the secret to good fried 'taters.

The trick is to keep the heat on medium and cover the skillet so that the 'taters sort of steam in the pan and only get slightly crunchy on the outside.

This is good for two reasons - 1.) It allows me to make the eggs in the same pan as soon as the 'taters are finished and 2.) I don't have to dirty up a different pan.

Before, when I would cook the 'taters on high, I couldn't cook the eggs in the same pan. If the heat is too high and you try to fry an egg, it will all bubble up and stick to the pan. You then can't flip the egg without breaking the yolk and ruining the whole dish.

But with cooking the 'taters on a lower heat and for a longer amount of time, you can just scoop out the 'taters and drop in the eggs.

So lesson learned on how to fry 'taters. Never did I think I would have to spend so much time perfecting something so easy as eggs and 'taters. But dish 1 out of 32,165,133,494 that TGG makes that I will have to learn to perfect.

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