Highbrow Hash
I was bored, hungry, and had some random food lying around the house a few nights ago, and I felt like hardening my arteries even more, so I threw this together.
Ingredients:
1lb Hickory smoked black pepper bacon, extra thick cut
1lb boneless chicken breast
1/2lb loose meat breakfast sausage (the kind you make patties out of)
2-3lb your favorite frying potatoes (more or less, depending on how meaty or starchy you want)
1 large onion diced large (optional)
1 green pepper diced large (optional)
1 hatch or habanero chili diced fine(optional)
1/2lb shredded mixed cheese (Optional)
4 tblsp butter
Seasoning:
2 tbsp finely grated parmagian cheese
1tbsp chili powder
1tbsp Black pepper
1tsp ground mustard seed
1tsp onion powder
1tsp garlic powder
1tsp powdered sugar
Juice from 1/2 lemon
For this recipe you are going to need a very large oven safe skillet. When I say very large, remember we are talking about 5lbs of meat and potatoes here. Your normal 10" or 12" x 2" deep skillet can only handle maybe half this much food. You really need a 16"x4" skillet for this. Either that, or you can use a very thick bottomed pot (thick so the grease wont burn).
Crumble and fry the sausage till about halfway browned, then add in the onions, peppers, and chilis. Finish by frying til the onions have started to carmelize.
Drain the sausage back into the pan using a large slotted spoon and pressing the grease out with the back of another spoon. Be careful not to burn the grease.
Cut the bacon into 1/2" sized chunks, and fry it in the sausage grease until lightly crisp, then drain back into the pan as above, being careful not to burn the grease.
At this point you should have a pretty full skillet of hot, and very fragrant grease. If you are going to make bacon-grease biscuits and cream gravy, as I HIGHLY recommend you do, you should drain off about a half to 3/4 cup of the grease.
With a 1/2 to 3/4 cup you can make 4-6 biscuits, and enough gravy to cover them depending on how big and greasy you like your biscuits and gravy. Oh and you'll want to save a couple tablespoons of sausage bits for the gravy.
Cut the chicken up into 1/2" to 1" chunks, dust them with salt, pepper, and chili powder, and fry until golden colored, then drain them back into the pan as described above.
Dice the potatos into 1/2" or smaller chunks. Splash lemon juice evenly over them. Combine the dry seasonings together, and evenly coat the potatos with them. For stronger flavoring make 50-100% more and shake the potatoes in a plastic bag to even coat them.
Add the butter to the grease, and fry the potatos to a medium golden brown.
The butter added to the bacon grease adds a bit more flavor (as if it needed it), and also aids in producing the right color in the fried potatoes.
Drain the potatoes thouroughly back into the pan, and let drain on brown paper (like shipping bags), but not to cool down.
Drain the remaining grease off from the pan, and filter it through a fine strainer to save for later use (nothing better for frying than bacon grease).
Deglaze the pan with 1/2 cup of milk. If your skillet is large enough, toss the potatoes, chicken, bacon, and remaining sausage back into the skillet, and liberally toss the mix over the heat, mixing throughly.
If your skillet is not large enough for all the ingredients, combine in a large bowl, and pour the deglaszed drippings over, mixing thoroughly, then reheat in the pan as you are getting ready to serve.
If you've made biscuits and gravy, at this point you're done. Just put a few large spoonfulls of the hash mix on a split biscuit (pile it high, come on you know you want to), and cover with the cream gravy.
If you dont have biscuits and gravy we'll do it up with cheese. Shut the heat off the pan, and toss in half your cheese with the hash, then sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the top. You can serve like this, or add some more cheese and stick the whole think in the oven under the broiler to melt and brown the top of the cheese.
Actually one of my favorite things to do with this is to use it as an omlette filling.
Finally, you can make a combination yorkshire pudding/pot pie with this by making your biscuit dough and cream gravy, but instead of making up biscuits, you mix up all the filling with the cream gravy, and make a skillet pie with the biscuit dough. Remember to bake the skillet pie with tin foil over the top of the skillet til the biscuit top is about halfway to nice and crusty. That way the bottom will cook along with the top.
If you know you are going to make a skillet pie before hand and you like a potpie style dinner, you can use about 50% more chicken, and a little less sausage and bacon. Make about 50% more gravy, cut the potato chunks a bit larger, and only fry them til they are soft. THis will give you a less greasy pie, with potatoes that soak up the gravy.
Serves about 4 of me without Biscuits and gravy, and 6 with. For normal people increase that by about 50%
And be sure to check out:
Recipes for REAL Men, Volume 12 - Lard Ass Wings
Recipes for REAL Men, Volume 11 - Bacon Double Macaroni and Cheese
Recipes for REAL Men, Volume 10 - It's the meat stupid
Recipes for REAL Men, Volume 9 - Labor Day Potatos
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 8 - It's a pork fat thing
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 7 - It may not be Kosher...
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 6 - Andouille Guiness Chili
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 5 - Eazza the Ultimate Pizza
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 4 - Two Pound Meat Sauce
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 3 - Highbrow Hash
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 2 - MuscleCarbonara
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 1 - More Beef than Stew
