Hash brown potatoes-A little help please

[Parenchyma]

Here’s a thread from Chowhound where a guy tested a lot of different methods side by side. I think the winning technique was parboiling and then partially freezing the potatoes before grating.

[Chefguy]

@Johnny_L.A

This is how I make hashbrowns, and we think they’re good.

The rinsing and soaking and rinsing keeps the potatoes from becoming gooey. Covering while cooking the first side cooks the middle. You can shred extra potatoes and store them in a zip-top bag in the freezer after rinsing and soaking. They might turn brown, but the brown will rinse away after thawing and, well, rinsing.

Usually, soaking potatoes will remove some of the amylose starch, which can help keep things like French fries from sticking together. Gluey consistency usually happens to mashed potatoes because people (over)whip them, which is why I always recommend a ricer. The more potatoes are mashed, the more starch is released, and the more gooey they become. I haven’t seen that happen with hash browns, though.

[harmonicamoon]

@Shakes

YouTube has about a hundred different videos on “How to make hash browns”.

Gracias Shakes. You are correct YouTube has everything.

Except, Cafe Society has some real talent. As demonstrated up thread. Have learned a great deal. And, I kinda like hangin’ out with them.

[harmonicamoon]

Thanks troops. A mountain of information. And I really appreciate this discussion.

From what I have read, rinsing and drying are good steps.

I asked the kitchen what oils they had. Olive, and vegetable. I clearly don’t want to clarify butter, so I think I will use bacon grease. Some of you mentioned that.

Thanks for bailing out my big mouth. I will write the course tomorrow.

[Johnny_L.A]

@harmonicamoon

I asked the kitchen what oils they had. Olive, and vegetable. I clearly don’t want to clarify butter, so I think I will use bacon grease. Some of you mentioned that.

Don’t bother clarifying butter. Just melt it and put the potatoes in. Or use margarine. (Butter tastes better.) I’ve never made them with oil. It just seems ‘wrong’ to me.

Personally, I wouldn’t use bacon grease. To me, bacon grease is for ‘country style’ potatoes (cubed potato with the skin on). Cooking hashbrowns in bacon grease would undoubtedly be delicious; but it wouldn’t taste the way I want hashbrowns to taste.

[Saturn_Dreams]

The combination of water and starch is anathema to a good hash brown, however, both are also necessary ingredients. Too much of both will create a gummy mess, and not having enough of either, (although moisture is less of a problem), will leave you with grated strands of potato that won’t bind and brown properly.

Using high-starch potatoes such as Russets is recommended, but all-purpose, (i.e. medium starchiness), will do fine as well. The difference is in how much surface starch to wash off. Whatever you do, do not soak them in water or else the interior starch will start leeching out. It’s the starch molecules absorbing moisture that makes them gelatinize to give you that soft, fluffy texture on the inside and reacts with hot oil to give you that pleasant crispy-crunchy outer coating.

When frying them in the pan, do not overcrowd. This will create steam and mix with the starch to make it unnecessarily gummy, not to mention an undercooked interior. Use a generous amount of oil/butter, sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper and you’re good to go:)

[Seydell]

Here is my method.

1. Cook the potatoes in the microwave on full power for 6-8 minutes depending on size, flipping them have way through.

2. Slice or shred the potatoes. (Much easier if potatoes are cool.)

3. Cook in half butter/half oil until brown. Flip and brown the other side.

4. Season to taste.

[Labrador_Deceiver]

@harmonicamoon

Thanks troops. A mountain of information. And I really appreciate this discussion.

From what I have read, rinsing and drying are good steps.

I asked the kitchen what oils they had. Olive, and vegetable. I clearly don’t want to clarify butter, so I think I will use bacon grease. Some of you mentioned that.

Thanks for bailing out my big mouth. I will write the course tomorrow.

Just use oil. You do not want to use bacon grease or plain butter in a restaurant setting if you are making pounds and pounds of hash browns. The cleanup is excessive and the potential for burning is way too high.

[sparky_1]

@wolfman

The key is dry, dry, dry. Any moisture left on the surface,and you just get a sad scattered pile’o’potato.

I’ve heard this too: you need to really get the moisture out of the potatoes.

[mhendo]

Some of my favorite hash browns come from a little hole-in-the-wall diner called Art’s Cafe, on Irving Street in San Francisco. Whenever my wife and i are visiting the Bay Area, we try to go at least once or twice.

We were there the other day, and i snapped a couple of pictures. You can see his hash browns in various stages of cooking.

Art is clearly of the “low heat and lots of patience” school of hash browns. The group on the right, which has not yet been turned, were already on the grill when we arrived, and they remained there for at least another fifteen minutes (maybe 20) before he turned them over.

Because it takes so long, he can’t do them to order from scratch. He cooks a whole bunch when the cafe is not too busy (like when we were there, on a Tuesday morning), and then puts them aside, reheating them on the grill when the orders come in. They are beautifully thin and crispy, but not too hard. I could eat them all day.

[Grrr]

@harmonicamoon

Gracias Shakes. You are correct YouTube has everything.

Except, Cafe Society has some real talent. As demonstrated up thread. Have learned a great deal. And, I kinda like hangin’ out with them.

Oh I understand. I just threw that out there because I’m a visual learner myself, I like to be able to SEE what all these smart people above us are talking about.