Sunday morning breakfast is scrambled eggs, sausage, and pan-fried diced potatoes. The spice on the potatoes varies. I’ve used herbs de Provence, ras al hannout, curry, and plain old improvisation, and probably a few other things I’ve forgotten.
A couple of weeks ago I saw a show with Anthony Bourdain in South Africa, and they spent a good deal of time talking about boerewors, the South African take on sausage. I looked up a few recipes online for it, made a batch of dry spice, and then instead of making sausage I just used it on the taters. Depending on which recipe you use (mine was the union of several that I found), you might add red wine vinegar or worcestershire sauce; I added that to the potatoes separately so I could store the rest of the dry spice mix. It all ended up pretty good, very unique.
What other traditional spice blends are worth trying on diced pan-fried potatoes?
Lemon, pepper, dill, and oregano is good. Bonus points for a little crumbled feta.
My go-to, though, is ust cooking with diced onion, celery, bell pepper, and Cajun seasoned salt. A little mustard powder, maybe. Lots of fresh parsley at the end.
Another good one is to use strong-flavored olive oil (mixed with neutral oil if you fry hard), and add olives and cherry tomatoes and chopped onion. Sprinkle with a little vinegar at the end if you want. This is really great if you like a bit of fish with your breakfast eggs.
I really can’t recommend rosemary on fried potatoes enough. I once had it in a restaurant, and ever since then I always use it. It gives the potatoes a sort of savory sweet flavor - I also love it on baked chicken.
I add paprika, onion powder (essential since my SO hates onions and I can’t stand not having some onion flavor) and plenty of salt, pepper and a lighter touch of cayenne. Besides spices, I really love sauteing veggies such as cherry tomatoes, spinach and mushrooms (again, separately because SO hates that too), adding them in to the potatoes and garnishing with grated parm cheese.
Onions. Lots and lots of onions. The wife will saute up a bunch in the pan, then set them aside and fry the potatoes in the oniony fat. She hates onions but loves the flavor (it’s a texture thing), so I get the onions added to my plate. Then she hits them with salt, lots of fresh pepper, a few dashes of pepper sauce and a dash of Penzey’s Pasta Sprinkle (basil, oregano, garlic and thyme). Toss in a quick palmful of shredded jack cheese and serve.
I made something called Mexican chorizo hash last weekend that was very good. It had some chorizo fried up, onion, roasted red bell pepper, salt, pepper, spinach (or kale), and shredded potatoes. I didn’t feel like roasting the pepper, so just added some smoked paprika to the dish instead. After it was finished, topped with fried eggs.
Yeah, rosemary is kind of the classic flavor for me when it comes to fried potatoes. Love 'em. I also enjoy it with any kind of Cajun spice blend (or an improvised blend with paprika, cayenne or other hot pepper, black pepper, salt, thyme, garlic powder, onion powder.)
Or fry them in onions and bacon fat. And, if you want to go a step farther, some diced up smoked Polish or Hungarian sausage. Or andouille. Or chorizo (although then I skip the bacon fat.)
After the potatoes cook, turn down to medium heat, fold in a couple of well beaten eggs until they start to set, top with cheese of choice, cover until cooked.
Chili powder is surprisingly good on potatoes. I got some nice, fresh stuff from a local spice store, and I use it on my baked potatoes (and just about everything else ).
Depending on what spices I have/what my mood is, I use some combination of the following:
Rosemary
Garlic
Parsley
Thyme
Oregano
Chili Powder
Smoked Paprika
A little olive oil to get the spices to “stick”
).