It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Christmas dinner in possession of suitable excess must be in want of a good recipe to use up all the extras. That’s alright for cold meats, which are sandwich-ready from the get-go ― but what about the poor abandoned spuds?
They’re too soggy if microwaved, too hollow if re-roasted (in my opinion), and hard to chow down on cold (even for a spud lover like me). Thankfully, the answer lies in a fifteen-minute, one-pan recipe; I’ve sworn by roast potato hash for years.
How do you make it?
The beauty of the roast potato hash is that it uses ingredients you probably already have to hand, and doesn’t take long.
To start, you’ll need oil, an onion (red, preferably, but it doesn’t hugely matter), spices of your choice (I like paprika, cumin, chilli, salt, pepper, about half a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, and a tiny dash of sugar), some meat if you eat it (diced bacon or chorizo is ideal), tomato puree and a tin of tomatoes.
Cook your onions in oil until soft, stirring so none become browned. Then add your garlic and fry for about a minute before chucking in your spices and sugar.
Mix in your tomato puree at this point, to, and stir all the ingredients for a further minute or so before adding about half a tin of chopped tomatoes. Lower the heat to a low simmer.
While that’s reducing, put your diced bacon or chorizo on to cook. Keep it frying until it’s released all its flavourful oils (you should be able to smell this), then add your roast potatoes. The spuds should crisp up in about ten minutes.
Then, spoon your spuds and diced bacon or chorizo into a bowl and add the thickened sauce; you can chuck a fried egg or feta cheese on top too if you like.
Of course, this recipe works best if you’ve got a lot of roast potatoes to hand ― if you’ve only got one or two, you might want to try adding them to stews and curries, or even chucking them into a frittata.
But for me, there’s only one roast spud leftover saviour.