Swiss Chard Hash

Welcome back! It's certainly been a while. Many changes have been afoot in our family, with the birth of our second child and a move to a new house. I had a few posts planned for last fall, but the news of gestational diabetes hit us like a truck and I immediately had to adjust to the new culinary challenge. While such limitations can encourage creativity, calculating carbs down to the gram and weighing everything we ate was not fun. One thing that did come out of it was exploring how to use millet and sweet potatoes, which perhaps will appear on the blog at some point. Luckily, that's behind us now. This post has nothing to do with any of that, and in fact is a celebration of carbs.

I have actually been making various hashes all the way back to college when I first started cooking for myself, but for some reason I've never written a recipe. The formula is simple: boil potatoes and fry them with onions and whatever else you want. This particular one uses Swiss chard to get some vegetables on the table alongside the potatoes. I served with baby back ribs made in the convection oven. Typically, I try to come up with meal ideas where one component can be cooked mostly hands-free in the oven while I focus on whatever is cooking on the stove. 

This dish turned out really well and can be a pattern for other variations. You could easily swap in kale or beet greens for the Swiss chard, though keep in mind that kale stems are tougher and need to cook longer. Bacon or ham could push this in the one-pan meal direction as well.

Ingredients

• 2 lb. gold potatoes
• 1/2 lb. onion
• 1 bunch (about 3/4 lb.) Swiss chard
• 4 cloves garlic
• Olive oil
• Salt and black pepper

Instructions

Scrub potatoes and cut into quarter inch slices. For larger potatoes, cut lengthwise once or twice first. Place in a large saucepan with water, bring to a boil, and cook until they can be pierced with a fork. Drain and set aside. If desired, this can be done ahead of time and the potatoes can be stored in the refrigerator.

Peel and dice the onion. Rinse the chard and separate leaves from stalks. Cut the stalks into inch-long pieces and roughly chop the leaves. Mince the garlic.

In a large sauté pan (I use a 12-inch cast iron, pictured above), heat enough oil to cover the bottom on medium high. Add the onion and chard stalks, season with salt and pepper, and cook until softened. Add the garlic and chard leaves and cook until the leaves are wilted. 

Add potatoes. Mix together and let cook until lightly browned on the bottom. Use a spatula to turn the mixture over and let brown again. Continue this process several times, until the potatoes are evenly browned and are starting to break down. Add more oil as needed. Season to taste with salt and pepper.