HASH BROWNS
HASH BROWNS ARE BEST DEFINED AS THIN, crisp sautéed potato cakes made with grated or chopped potatoes, raw or precooked. We tested various kinds of potatoes and found high-starch russets to yield the best results overall. They adhered well, browned beautifully, and had the most pronounced potato flavor.
Our next challenge was to decide between raw and precooked potatoes. Precooked potatoes tasted good, but when chopped they did not stay together in a cohesive cake, and when grated they needed to be pressed very hard to form a cake. Unfortunately, this meant they ended up having the mouthfeel of fried mashed potato. Although this is an acceptable alternative if you have leftover cooked potatoes, we preferred using raw, grated potatoes. We also liked the more textured interior, the pronounced potato taste, and the way the raw shreds of potatoes formed an attractive, deeply browned crust.
Choosing the best method for cutting the potatoes was easy. In our tests, chopped potatoes never stayed together in the pan. No matter how finely diced, they were simply chopped, sautéed potatoes, not hash browns. Grating the potatoes on the large-hole side of a box grater or with the shredding disk on a food processor yielded hash browns that formed a coherent cake when cooked.
After cooking countless batches of hash browns, we found that the pan itself was an important factor. A skillet with sloping sides makes it considerably easier to press the potatoes into a flattened shape, invert them, and slide them from the pan. All of these tasks were difficult in a straight-sided frying pan. Uncoated stainless steel pans produced the best crust, but nonstick pans provided adequate browning and are far easier to clean.
Hash browns can be made into one or more individual servings or one large portion that can be cut into wedges. If making a single cake, fold it over just before serving so that each wedge of hash brown has four (not just two) crisp edges. No matter how you choose to present the hash browns, make sure you serve them steaming hot.