Lately, I've been wanting to make a hash for dinner. It has something to do with the surfeit of potatoes we've been getting in our CSA, but especially with fall coming on, it's a nice comforting dish. I based it on a recipe for Red Flannel Hash from Rick and Ann's restaurant in Berkeley, but with some changes. I used to make a sausage and onions dish when I was in law school, and still enjoy playing with sausage meat, so I used de-cased sausages in place of the bacon. I also added some jalapeno and vinegar to kick it up a notch. It turned out pretty good, and it's a nice, easy recipe to have in mind.

First, I started the potatoes steaming while I peeled the beets. I chopped a jalapeno, onion, and a garlic clove. I also sliced open the sausages and removed the casing. Once the beets and the potatoes were done steaming, I started frying the sausage. After the sausage was browned, I removed it and deglazed the pan with some vinegar, after which I added the aromatics. Once those were brown, I added the potatoes and beets in, mashed them, and once they had heated up a bit and gotten a bit brown, I put the sausage back in and let it all meld together.

It was really quite tasty, with just a couple flaws. First, the sausage didn't actually have enough fat to grease up the pan, so I should have added some oil/butter/fat to the pan before putting in the aromatics, and certainly before adding the potatoes. Second, I'm not sure the beets ended up as well cooked as I would have liked. But the jalapeno and vinegar gave it a good kick, the flavors worked really well together, and the combination of beets, sweet potatoes, and russet potatoes had a really nice color. Recipe after the jump.


Red Flannel Hash

Serves 2

1 cup 1/2-inch pieces red-skinned potatoes
1 medium sweet potato, chopped into 1/2 pieces
1 medium beet, peel and chopped into 1/2 inch pieces

3 sweet italian sausages, de-cased
1/4 cup chopped white onion
1 small jalapeno

white wine vinegar

1 large garlic clove

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Red-Flannel-Hash-5814#ixzz25iQfUT39