HASH, best ever

• 1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
• 1 large yellow potato, peeled if you want, and diced
• 1 mediumish onion, diced
• 1 knobby little green bell pepper, very pungent, diced
• About 2 cups leftover cooked meat, diced (in this case: turkey)
• A heaping tablespoon of tomato paste
• A couple tablespoons of leftover gravy, or something gravy-ish… roux? White sauce? Alfredo? There must be something in the fridge!
• A couple tablespoons of vegetable oil
• Salt, pepper

Boil the diced potato in a little bit of salted water; you want it very soft. Drain, mash slightly with a potato masher. You could use leftover potatoes if you have them, but I didn’t. While that’s happening, saute the onion and green pepper in some oil, in a large skillet.

Add the cooked, mangled potato to the skillet, along with another drizzle of oil. Stir in the chopped meat, tomato paste, and gravy. Maybe a little more oil. You want enough to get things crispy but not so much that it’s greasy. This may depend on your gravy or gravy-ish substance.

Hash is really more about technique than ingredients. What you need to do is get a large spatula and flatten the hash into the skillet, really flat, and then turn the heat up to medium-high and let it go for at least five minutes. Maybe more. Press it with the spatula a few more times while you make some coffee.

You could, if you want, just serve the hash with one crispy side and one soft side. But I’m an overachiever, so I used the large spatula to scoop the half-crisped hash over in chunks. A little more oil, a little more spatula-pressing. (Get any extra gravy out of the fridge, or find the ketchup.)

After another few minutes you won’t be able to wait any longer, so scoop the fully- or mostly-crisped hash onto plates (in this case, chipped Wedgewood depicting landmarks of the Harvard campus, relics from my last apartment in Brooklyn). Drizzle extra gravy or ketchup over the top, maybe some salt and pepper.

This doesn’t look like much but it tastes like a LOT.