I will now tell you how to cook amazing home-fried potatoes, which are the perfect breakfast food, at least for people who don’t eat bacon (or so I’m told, seeing as how I don’t eat bacon).
Equipment you need:
- 9-inch glass-lidded frying pan for a 1 serving or 12-inch for 2
- spatula (if you’re using a non-stick pan, don’t use a metal spatula, you heathen)
- cutting board and good chef’s knife
Ingredients you need:
- 1 large potato (about 10oz.) per serving
- 1 small onion per serving (or a medium onion for 2 servings)
- Smart Balance oil or olive oil or any cooking oil you like the taste of
- Spud Fixin’ Camp Mix (yeah, you can make up the spices yourself, but why mess with perfection?)
- shredded cheese to melt on top if you’re so inclined
- an egg to cook on top if you’re so inclined
Steps:
- Put the lidded frying pan on the stove and start heating it on medium heat.
- Cube the potatoes, between 1/2″ and 3/4″ inch.
- If you’re cutting 2 potatoes, then add oil to the pan between them. Otherwise add oil after you finish cutting the potato and wait 30 seconds. You need about 3 tbsp of oil for the 9-inch pan or 5 tbsp of oil for the 12-inch pan; once you’ve done it a few times you’ll get the hang of it and just pour without measuring.
- Carefully (don’t want to splatter too much oil!) slide the potatoes off the cutting board into the pan.
- Smooth out the potatoes so they’re evenly distributed in a single layer. Do this by by gently agitating the pan back and forth with one hand while applying gentle pressure with the spatula with the other.
- Cover the pan.
- Peel and chop the onion.
- Uncover the pan, spread the onion on top of the potatoes (don’t mix yet!), and cover again.
- Leave the pan undisturbed with the glass lid on until you start to see a hint of brown around the edges of some of the cubed potatoes (this is why you need a glass lid!). If there are too many water droplets on the lid to see, remove it quickly and hold it vertically over the sink for the water to drain off before returning it to the pan.
- Use the spatula to flip over the potatoes as best you can, evenly distribute them in a single layer again, and close the lid again.
- Leave the pan undisturbed for about half as long as it took for the first round of cooking.
- Open the pan, fold over the potatoes from half of the pan onto the other half, and then evenly distribute them again.
- Apply Spud Fixin’ liberally. If it doesn’t obviously change the shade of the potatoes you aren’t using enough of it.
- Add shredded cheese if you want.
- Crack the egg on top if you want.
- Cover the pan and cook for another minute.
- Finally, remove the finished potatoes from the pan and enjoy the unparalleled deliciousness.
