When I was a kid, we had a fairly predictable weekend routine. Saturdays were always for winding down and sunny Sundays usually began with brunch and ended with seemingly interminable trips to the Home Depot. But on those gloomy, rainy winter days when getting out of bed, or worse, getting out of pajamas seems impossible, we turned to each other when hunger struck. Although he generally spent little time in the kitchen, weekend breakfast was my dad's forte. The whole thing usually started with steak and egg sandwiches on French bread. After a few cups of coffee (I loved it even as a kid) I'd whip up a big batch of scrambled eggs and he'd fry up a few minute steaks. The whole thing would go between two pieces of bread dipped in the steak's pan drippings. But the sandwiches weren't the best part.
Although our main dishes may have changed over the years, there was no removing our home fries from the menu. They were always there, a big heaping bowlful fresh from the frying pan, still glistening and streaked with smoked paprika. There's nothing we liked more than home fries in those days, and we ordered them in droves when eating out, but not one restaurant version could compare with the ones we made at home. There were no peppers or heaps of onions and burned garlic in ours, just sliced potatoes covered in spices and fried in oil. Home fries are the one exception I make for onion and garlic powder other than rubs. The best home fries are fried in oil, in a frying pan, on high heat. The worst home fries I've had are dry cooked on a flat top or baked in the oven. The best are fried because it allows for the right texture inside and out and helps the potatoes stay moist (yay grease!). Powdered onion and garlic works best because fresh garlic would burn, whereas the powdered does not, and actually permeates the entire potato with flavor.
It seems simple, but you'd be surprised at how many bad home fries there are out there. It's shocking how little thought people give to this wonderful side dish. I gave it quite some thought this weekend when, despite the sun, I began to crave the home fries of my youth. Fortunately, I had an entire bag of potatoes wasting away in the fridge just begging to be made into a delicious breakfast treat. Twenty minutes later I had the lovely plate of potatoes you see before you. It's deceptively easy to make, and you don't have to tell anyone about the onion powder.
Easy Home Fries
4-5 Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1 inch pieces about 1/8 inch thick
2 tsp onion powder
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp sugar
salt
pepper
vegetable oil (or your favorite light oil) for frying
1. Heat oil in a large non-stick frying pan or skillet until hot but not smoking.
2. Toss potatoes with onion powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika, sugar, salt and pepper. Add to oil and fry on high heat for 8-10 minutes, then reduce heat to medium. Turn potatoes periodically until cooked through. Enjoy!
-Laura
It wasn't so long ago that I became obsessed with meatballs. I know this may sound strange, but they're tiny, juicy morsels of meat always served with a carb. They're perfect. I'd made Italian spaghetti and meatballs many times, but was never quite satisfied with what came out of my kitchen. So, to learn more about how to go about making truly great meatballs, I immersed myself in meatball history.
Many cultures have laid claim to the invention of the meatball, but no real creator has ever been proclaimed. Having already tried the Italian style, I moved on to the next most popular type, Swedish meatballs. They were okay, but always seemed bland and only edible thanks to the sauce. These were not winners. After seeing a public access program on German cuisine I decided to give klopse a try. They were similar to the Swedish style but slightly more hamburgery. Not there yet.
Unsatisfied by northern and central Europe I decided to let my palette lead the way and I skipped over to Middle Eastern style meatballs. I knew that I liked the smoky and aromatic spices of the region, so hoping for better results I decided to try making koftas and keftes. This was much closer to what I was looking for. The meatball itself has all of the flavor and doesn't rely on heaps of gravy for substance, although I do love dipping them in a yogurt based sauce. These were the meatballs I'd make for months, until, like all of my culinary obsessions, I finally tired of them.
It was only recently while flipping through my grandmother's cookbook (which I may or may not have stolen from my mother while visiting her in Spain) that I came across a Spanish recipe for meatballs. Why it had not crossed my mind to try this out earlier was beyond me. After all, I've only ever had great meatballs in Spain, and they're served over home style fries. Talk about your perfect dishes. Not to mention, the spices and methods used to make them are startlingly similar to my favorite Middle Eastern meatballs. After some research I learned that (not surprisingly) meatballs are thought to have been brought to Spain some 1200 years ago by...Middle Eastern settlers during the Muslim occupation! Of course! So, I set forth to make Spanish style meatballs, known to us as albóndigas. I now (of course) have a favorite kind of meatball. Here's how to make them, with a few tweeks to the recipe, of course:
Albóndigas
Meatballs
Ground beef (I used just under 1lb)
1 cup white wine
2 eggs, beaten
4 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 cup parsley
1 tsp cumin
2 slices bread (crusts removed) soaked in milk
1 cup flour
1 Tbsp minced onion
4 Tbsp olive oil
Easy Fries
2 large (or 3 small) Yukon gold potatoes
2 cups vegetable oil
1 cup olive oil (not extra virgin)
1. Season meat with salt, 3 Tbsp of the minced garlic (reserve the rest for the light gravy), parsley (reserving 1 tsp of it for the gravy), cumin and a Tbsp of white wine, and allow to marinate 15 minutes.
2. While the meat marinates, cut the potatoes into 2 inch long by 1/2 inch wide fries and set aside. Start heating the oil in a medium sized pot.
3. When the 15 minutes have elapsed, add the two eggs and bread slices (squeeze out any excess milk) to the meat mixture. After everything is well incorporated, roll into 1 1/2 inch wide balls and lightly coat in flour. When you're about halfway done rolling the meatballs, carefully add the potatoes to the pot of hot oil. Stir and flip them periodically until cooked through (You can set them aside in a foil covered plate if done before the meatballs).
4. Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add meatballs to oil and cook on medium high heat until one side is golden brown. Flip over and cook other side until golden brown, and almost completely cooked through.
5. Remove meatballs from the pan and set aside. Reduce heat to medium low and add onion and remainder of the garlic and parsley to the pan. After a minute, deglaze the pan with the remainder of the white wine. Add 1/2 tsp flour and cook for another 30 seconds. Add meatballs back to the pan and allow to cook through.
6. Serve meatballs with pan gravy over fries. Enjoy!
-Laura
It's entirely possible that I've hailed something as my favorite comfort food before, but it would have been a lie. It's actually what you see before you, a really rustic and simple dish that in Spain goes by many different names. In my family we call this dish patatas revueltas con huevo, as my grandmother did. But, if you visit old Madrid, home to some of the oldest restaurants in Europe, you'll see them called patatas estrelladas. They all essentially mean the same thing, they're basically just home fries with a scrambled egg or two. Restaurants usually serve them more like stubby little fries with scrambled eggs on top, but we make them a bit differently.
My fondness for the dish started as many favorites do, with my grandmother. It's really just a poor man's version of tortilla española, a dish somewhere between a quiche and a fritatta, and consisting only of potatoes, eggs, and onions. This version really is a poor man's treat, originating with peasants who had no more than a sack of potatoes and the eggs from their own coop with which to feed their families.
For us it started with a roadtrip from D.C. to Florida. My parents and I drove there in a day (barely, about 22 hours) to visit my grandparents who were spending the summer in our apartment in Miami. Tired of road food and potato chips, we finally stopped at a gas station and called my grandparents from a payphone begging for a warm meal. It was the middle of the night and we were only 30 minutes away, so my elderly grandmother did what she could with a half a dozen potatoes and three eggs. She worried that it wouldn't be a satisfactory enough meal after such a long journey, but before any of us knew it, all of the food was gone and we were begging for more. I don't know if it's the memory of how it felt to eat it for the first time that night, or that I know she always made the dish with love, but every time I make that dish at home I'm instantly comforted.
And I was definitely in need of some comfort when I came home Wednesday night to a note telling me that my elevator would be out of service until at least the 15th of November. So, just like some people go to their "happy place" when frustrated, I grabbed my sack of Yukon golds and got to chopping. It's possible that this is an entire plate of carbs talking, but I guarantee it'll be the most comforting meal you've had in years. Here's how to make it for yourself:
Patatas Revueltas con Huevo (Potato and Egg Scramble)
3 large Yukon gold potatoes
2 cups vegetable oil (approx)
2 eggs
Salt
2 Tbsp sugar (sounds weird, but go with me on this)
1. Thinly slice potatoes, no thicker than 1/8 of an inch to ensure even cooking. When you're halfway through slicing, start heating the oil on medium high in a large pan.
2. Salt and sugar potatoes and carefully add to the oil. The oil should almost cover the potatoes but not quite (they will shrink as they cook). When the potatoes are about halfway cooked through and the bottom layer is crunchy and browned, flip them over and cook until done.
3. Remove potatoes from the oil, and remove oil from pan (I actually save it in a metal oil canister and use it the next time I make any kind of fried potato) and lower the heat to medium low. Add potatoes back to the pan and crack both eggs over them. Scramble the eggs with the potatoes, then let them sit and flip everything over every 5 seconds or so until eggs are cooked through (I like them as soft and fluffy as possible, it always takes less than a minute. The idea is to let the warmth of the potatoes cook the egg as much as possible, not the heat of the pan.
**TIP: You can use this same method minus the eggs to make a killer batch of home fries. In addition to the salt and the sugar, season the potatoes with a tsp of paprika, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp onion powder, and 1/2 tsp pepper (I prefer white pepper). Fry them up the same way, only on slightly lower heat and you're all set. If you like yours spicy, use hot paprika, or for fire eaters, add 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper. You can save the oil from this dish as well, so long as it didn't burn. Try frying up some eggs in it and serving them over white rice. Yum!
-Laura
