hash brown patties

It’s not entirely healthy or sane, but I can fiddle with a recipe for years before finally getting it out the door. What is done? What is ready? Aren’t we all works in progress, forging paths to even more greatness? Sometimes it’s obvious when a recipe is ready to laminate and tuck in our forever files; I love those days. Sometimes, the longer I leave it, the more it metamorphosizes. What I’m trying to say is that in 2020, this was a tater tot recipe. In 2021, it became a giant tot, i.e. a thick hash brown patty, and also gluten-free. In 2022, because I’m so attached to the Trader Joe’s version stashed in my freezer and wanted these more like that, it became thinner.

The year is now 2023.Bookshave been published. Regimes have changed. Children have entered and nearly completed middle school, gray hairs have sprung, betraying, and I believe — I mean, I’m absolutely utterly certain — that this is the final iteration of what I consider to be the perfect homemade hash brown patty: crisp, as fuss-free as possible, and my absolutely favorite raft for an egg, or the base of a salad-y lunchtime avocado toast. The only thing I forgot to do is test it in an air-fryer but I’m going to send this off regardless, before we blink and it’s 2024, and trust that someone will report back in the comments below about how it went. Deal?