Goodness doesn't get much simpler than eggs and potatoes. The combination works for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Think scrambled eggs with potatoes, potato salad laced with hard-cooked eggs, crunchy fried potatoes topped with a soft egg. It's perfect fare for casual entertaining, and great for overnight guests during the overloaded holiday season.
I think the contrasting textures explain a lot of the combo's appeal. Also, both ingredients exhibit a fantastic affinity for picking up other flavors — butter, oil, bacon, hot sauce, black pepper.
Loving this combination, I seek it out whenever possible. On recent travels, I was thrilled to find corned beef hash on a breakfast menu. The skillet full of crispy little potatoes and shreds of tender, rich corned beef, topped with a fried egg, proved a far cry from any canned corned beef hash of old.
The secret to this rejuvenated breakfast staple is allowing the ingredients to maintain individual textures: crispy potatoes, soft caramelized onions, toothsome meat chunks and the melting goodness of soft egg.
For just about any hash, I prefer to par-cook small potatoes to shorten the cook time and to retain moisture. The microwave cooks the potatoes quickly and makes cleanup easy. For crispness, pull out the cast-iron pan and heat it thoroughly before adding some fat to lubricate everything and promote browning. Start with a sweet onion to caramelize it, then add the par-cooked potatoes in a single, uncrowded layer — leaving space around the potatoes promotes the browning.
Once the potatoes and onions are perfectly golden, you can go in a million directions: Serve them as is with salt and freshly cracked pepper. Crush them lightly with a potato masher, and add cooked meats or vegetables to make a kind of hash to top with eggs. Add beaten eggs, and scramble with diced avocado for a vegetarian taco filling. Or, sprinkle the potatoes over a salad of frisee and kale with a warm vinaigrette.
The breakfast skillet that follows is delicious topped with softly poached eggs that add yolky richness. Poached eggs can be tricky, so I practice making them when guests are not around. Part of their appeal is that they can be poached in advance and simply rewarmed in a dish of hot water. No stress, however, since fried eggs with a runny center taste great here, too.
For the corned beef, I simmer a small roast in water with spices on the stovetop until it is fall-apart tender. Use the slow cooker, if desired, so you can run errands while the meat cooks. Know that a 3-pound roast will yield just over 1 pound of cooked, lean shredded meat.
