Sweet Potato Hash

The comfort food menu continues, I really need it... sometimes the New Years season causes me stress, especially the last couple of them. This year I have seriously considered going on a good old fashioned bender. Couple of bottles of vodka and avoid the stressors altogether, however as responsible grown ups we have to stop that and deal with stuff and I like to use a lot of comfort food to compensate. My beautiful wife Kris often says that I am the only person that could take someone that struggled with anorexia her whole life and make her fat. I don't agree with the "fat" part, but you see my point I compensate for bad feelings with food. What else works so well?

Sweet Potato Hash was on the menu that I served my friend on Christmas. Similar to the Ham and Gravy, even if you have never tried this it has a comfort food quality to it that is hard to describe... it just makes you feel warm all over.

I have made this dish two ways both were wonderful, but you will soon see why I made it the second way.

This serves about 4 people, Ingredients:
4 Sweet Potatoes peeled and diced
1 Onion finely diced
1/2 pound Bacon diced
Salt, Pepper, Garlic Powder.

The first time that I made this dish I fried the diced Potatoes in vegetable oil. I heated enough oil in a small saucepan to cover the diced sweet potatoes (the oil was 375 degrees). I did it in two batches and cooked them for about 8-10 minutes. Here is where it gets good, while the second batch is frying saute bacon and onion together over pretty high heat, when the second batch of potatoes is done frying pull it out of the oil and into the saute pan. Saute until all ingredients are cooked through, maybe another 5-7 minutes. This is the way I made it for the pictures, it is wonderful the Sweet Potatoes are caramelized on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

In the spirit of New Years however; really how often should we pull something out of frying oil and immediately put it in rendered bacon fat? Whats next coating it in heavy cream and butter? Ok, that sounds kind of good but stop... When I made this for my friend Rochelle on Christmas I did everything exactly the same except I boiled the diced sweet potatoes. The Hash looked like a more traditional hash the sweet potatoes looked like they had been beaten up a bit, they needed a little more seasoning but they were good and I made up for any loss by serving it with ham gravy. Still on a kick from the gravy, maybe I should sell that in jars. Anyway it is your kitchen and your family/friends you decide which works best for you, both are delicious.