My Hash Browns

My older son is a picky eater. My younger son is not, but he has food allergies which means we have to force him to be picky. It’s unusual for my older son to eat a lot of anything. Usually he will eat a little bit of something and then push it aside. I made French toast for breakfast last week. He ate about three-fourths of the bread and then asked for a bagel. As a cook, I want to make something that he will eat.

Fortunately, there is something that I cook that he really enjoys: hash browns. He loves the hash browns from McDonald’s, but I prefer to cook them myself because I can control what goes into them. I start with two good-sized russet potatoes. (Yukon gold potatoes are preferable for mashed potatoes, but russets are better for hash browns.) I cook them in the microwave for about eight minutes, then peel the skin off and chop them into cubes about a third of an inch wide. I chop and sauté an onion in a small amount of canola oil on medium-high heat. When the onion gets soft and starts to turn translucent, I throw in the potatoes. You need to let them sit for a bit so that they begin to brown; don’t keep turning them. If my kids weren’t eating the hash browns, I’d season them with kosher salt and pepper. They complain about the pepper, however, so I just add salt then add pepper to my own serving. Once the potatoes are brown I serve them up.