Rene’s Potato Hash with 7-Minute Eggs

This breakfast potato hash is perfect for using up bottom-of-the-crisper-drawer vegetables like onions, mushrooms, and kale.

Rene hates cooking. So much so that you can actually hear it in the way he cooks – the way we whacks the knife on the cutting board, how he dismissively tosses garlic onto the counter, how he drops a used mixing bowl into the sink.

What’s even more annoying than this orchestra of noises is that he’s an amazing cook. He has those essential kitchen instincts that can take others years to master – he’s patient with searing, attentive to uniformity when chopping vegetables, and gutsy when combining herbs and spices. It’s a shame, but it does make those rare occasions when he cooks that much more special.

A few Sundays ago, as we rolled out of bed just before noon, Rene said he’d go get breakfast started. I thought he was referring to making toast, but when I got to the kitchen, it was a full-on breakfast production. He’d pulled all the vegetables out of the fridge, chopped some potatoes, onions, and garlic (you can take the boy out of Poland…), and was heating up oil in a pan. A breakfast potato hash was in our immediate future.

I knew I’d have to share this recipe with you guys because A. breakfast food is the best food, and B. I love recipes that help you use up bottom-of-the-crisper-drawer vegetables.

The key to this breakfast potato hash is honoring the texture of each individual vegetable and adding them to the pan in order of longest cooking time to shortest (instead of dumping everything in at once).

In this case, the potatoes go in first to steam and soften. Next are the mushrooms, which are browned along with the potatoes. Then the tomatoes, which are cooked just long enough to release their juices. And lastly, the kale, which only needs a minute to wilt and turn bright green.

I encourage you to use this recipe as a guide and substitute in whatever vegetables you have on hand – like sweet potatoes instead of white, and spinach or collard greens instead of the kale. You can also toss in zucchini, fennel, bell peppers, broccoli, peas, etc.

Get creative with the spices, too – apart from rosemary, oregano, fennel seeds, and/or thyme are also delicious here. Whatever veg you use, resist the urge to stir the hash too much while it’s cooking because you want the vegetables to be nicely caramelized.

About the 7-minute eggs: with solid whites and almost-set but still-jammy yolks, they are the perfect soft-boiled eggs and add richness to this dish. If you’re vegan, skip the eggs or serve the hash with scrambled tofu instead.

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