It seems I live in the dark ages because hash brown seems to have been around forever, but never on my palate...well maybe in a different form called french fries.
But hash brown is either a mashed potatoe and grated potato mix, or actually a riced???? mix or on its own, or just a grated mix on its own.
This get compacted together and can be pressed supposedly in some device built to do that to mold it and get rid of excess water. This as far as I know after it has been boiled. Then it gets fried in hot oil.
Whatever, my larder was getting empty today so went out to hunt for the right ingrediants to at least make a hash brown happen. Sweet potatoes for all their goodness was crossed off the list. I wanted the wicked potatoe which is part of the poisenous nightshade family as is tomato, with its solanin poisen capable of performing self suicidal cell destruction. This is apparently called apopstasis and is actually a natural way of nature to get rid of distressed cells and is in fact the forming of the human body in birth to seperate its different members like fingers from a solid mass of flesh. The cells between the fingers commit voluntary suicide so the fingers may be seperated.
Anyway...don't worry to much about it, unless you want to eat green tomatoes, or green potatoes(the green of potatoes is not the only indication of solanin, it is an indication of exposure to the sun(chloroform), which apparently produces solanin). Then it is preferable you fry the green tomotoes in oil, this absorbs the heavy solanin levels in green tomotoes to more healthier, or should I say less unhealthier levels. Potatoes...hey just peel them, the solanin levels are concentrated in the skin area and any damaged areas....pestilence repellant , but although you do not feel like a pest, do not imbibe solanin.
So I got potatoes. I saw a chinese chef on Saturday doing his thing and ended up looking what bearnaise sauce was. still can't think what it is...something fragile. whatever, bought fresh spring onion, french chives(not sure how this chinese guy got into my thoughts..he had a hand in it somewhere...maybe for his daring?) and tomatoe and other bare essentials like meat milk etc.
While I was defrosting the chicken....hash browns entermingled with spring onion, chives and tomato spiced with garlic and ginger (now I remember...this chinese chef always recommends the use of ginger and garlic)came to my mind.
I peeled the fresh ginger...then as the chinese chef had done, I smashed it. It could have been a car wreck . His just seemed to seperate into small even crumbles. Mine just seemed to morph into more molecules each with a mind of its own. I smashed again, and suddenly for the first time smelt the smell of fresh ginger, it smelt like lemon with a ginger smell. I tasted it . it was very lemony with a ginger tinge.
Now I remember from my days when I was trying to make alcoholic ginger beer(Yea, I was hooked on alcohol from a young age
) never ever having experianced the actual smell and taste of fresh ginger. You take a pinch of dried ginger and put it on your tongue, now take fresh ginger and do the same....a vaste difference in fragrance and flavour. Btw , if I ever managed to make alcoholic ginger beer, I never noticed, either because it was not alcoholic, or perhaps way too alcoholic.
Anyway, I boiled the potatoes, fried all the other stuff in a pan at meduim heat, then put the boiled potatoes in the pan and mashed it up with a masher(no, not my guard dog .. a plastic flat thing with a lot of holes in it that with force forces anything under it to squish between the holes)
I then powdered a wooden plank with wheat flower and enticed the mashed mixture out of the pan onto the plank with a common spoon.(make that a table spoon).
I preheated the cleaned pan now filled again with fresh oil to 2/3 power. Shaped the mixture into a brick about 1.5 cm high...sheesh you imperial people are a pain...there are 25.4 mm in an inch, So I shaped it 15 divided by 25.4 of an inch. don't burn it while you work that out. about one and a half fingers of my fingers alright? should I show you one?
Anyway, I used mashed potatoe to combine this lot together. It seemed not to be a very good bonding agent. maybe thats why they use grated potatoe. I turned up the heat to at least 2 fingers to you imperial lot and found that charcoaling it certainly held it together, but the taste needed an exponetially taste dificient tongue to say it tasted no different than before.
However, I ate it all, because it tasted really good in its various forms of preparing. was kidding you about that charcoaling stuff. I found that leaving the mashed up mixture to cool, provided better post grilling results
