Duck Fat Mashbrowns

Warning.  What I am about to share with you is #1- Awesome and #2- Not at all my idea.Nope.I wish it was, but it came from an online friend of mine.  All I can take credit for was cooking what you are about to see below and naming it.  But the idea of turning leftover mashed potatoes into hasbrowns is not at all mine.God I wish it was.Think about it, we generally have leftover mashed potatoes and they’re always dried out a bit… and they can be reconstituted by adding more milk/fat, etc, or made into croquettes, etc. but this is a perfect (and super easy) way to take a dried potato product and make it sing.

My friend, Dan at www.somelikeityum.com shared it on his Instagram page a couple days ago and I was immediately drawn to it.

Then, named it.

M A S H B R O W N S
  
(I mean…you have to admit the name is pretty clever, no?)


Then cooked it my way.

In duck fat with onions.

Then ate it.

All of it.

Almost all of it, but a lot of it.

And smiled the whole time.

 

makes…however much you want! (depends on leftover amount 🙂

Start with leftover mashed potatoes…

I had about 2 1/2-3 cups worth, so adjust the duck fat to accommodate as needed.

 

Preheat a large skillet on medium-high heat and add 3 TB of duck fat.  (Note- I always save my rendered fat whenever I cook duck, and keep it in a sealed jar in the fridge.  It keeps forever. But they sell it at Williams Sonoma and similar places as well.  I highly recommend having some and using it, but if you don’t have any and still want to make this, just use butter.)While your fat is getting hot, begin to saute 1/2 yellow onion, diced.  The onions don’t have to get cooked all the way through or begin to brown yet, they will cook with the potatoes…Once the fat is very hot, add in your mashed potatoes and spread them out across the pan.

And don’t touch them for minutes.  Several minutes.  You want them to begin to brown.  And the only way to properly brown something is to leave it the hell alone.

Walk away.

Fold laundry.

Do a little dance, make a little love…

Just leave ’em be.

Then, after five or so minutes, come back and peek underneath.  If it looks like this below, begin to flip them around in the pan to brown the other sides.

 

I found a flipper spatula worked best at this point, as it was starting to stick a bit from the browning.Keep letting it sit and brown and flip, sit and brown and flip, until you have perfectly browned and amazing as hell MASHBROWNS.

Serve with runny eggs and bacon or sausage…the whole nine.  These deserve a grand slam breakfast.

Please make these.  PLEASE.  They’re too easy and delicious not to.  I may even start planning on it whenever we’re having mashers!  The whole family loved them too, so it was a total win-win.

Thank you, my sweet friend, for being just so dern smart!!!

(Please go check out his page- www.somelikeityum.com.  His food photography is wicked.)

XOXO