Asparagus and Pancetta Hash Phwoarness

I’ve been drooling over many a recipe on amazing New York based food blog Smitten Kitchen for the last year. I finally got around to trying out one of the dishes this evening. So glad I did.

This Asparagus and Pancetta Hash would be simply fabulous for brunch but it worked super well as a comforting mid-week dindins.

Niall is galavanting in South Africa this week so I vaguely followed Smitten Kitchen’s recipe to throw together a delicious meal for one. And I even popped an egg on top. Even though it was nearly bed time.

My twitterfriend @jenlucy made this last week and had a few little tips, which helped when I adapted it from the original. So here’s how I went about it to make enough for my ronery self. So ronery!

What you need for Asparagus and Pancetta Hash for 1 (easily doubled!)

2 spuds, peeled and cut into small cubes – I used 8 little new potatoes as that is what I had in my pantry. Heh heh pantry sounds so grand. My pantry=under the sink

Around 100g of pancetta cut into little cubes

10 or so small, thin spears of asparagus or 6 biggies – cut into inch-long chunks

One smallish white onion, finely diced

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

Heat some oil over a medium heat and fry your pancetta.

Meanwhile, cut your spuds into small cubes. Once your pancetta is cooked, remove it from the pan and drain on kitchen paper towel.

Over the same medium heat, pop your potato cubes into the same pan. You may need to add more oil, either at the beginning or as you go along.

Smitten Kitchen recommends leaving the potatoes for a few minutes to establish the golden hue you’re after, rather than continuously stirring. I left my spuds for about 3 minutes at a time, then gave them a stir to keep them from sticking. I also added a very generous amount of salt here as well as a smattering of pepper.

After 15-20 minutes, your spuds should be getting close to the desirable crispiness, but they’ll still be pretty pale. Add your onions and cook for a further 5 minutes, stirring all the while to make sure nothing sticks.

Once onion is cooked, add your asparagus, cover with a lid and whack the heat up a bit. It was in this stage that my spuds really got their crispiness, as I let it all cook away for 5 minutes, checking on it about three times to give it a stir and make sure things weren’t getting too sticky.

I had a pot of water on the boil and had my poached egg ready for the Hash. I served it all up in a big bowl and thoroughly enjoyed it.

TUNE

Have a listen to the stream of this week’s edition of my radio show Right Click Radio, which goes out on Wednesday nights at 9pm (repeated on Saturdays at 10am) on RTE 2xm.

Categories: Dinner

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Tackling the culinary and grammatical arts in simultaneous mouthfuls.

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