Egg-Topped Fridge Gravel Hash - Brunch with Some Bite!

This little beauty is a one pan dish cooked in 5 stages. Super easy and very satisfying. With a good punch! P.S. you can make this as spicy or mild as you like. For a vegetarian twist, ditch the bacon and top with salty feta before the egg or even fry up some halloumi instead! For a vegan version you could skip the butter and eggs and instead add some tofu and/or beans to the hash to amp up the protein and top with a rich spicy tomato salsa. Totally adaptable and great for using up leftovers. 

This recipe is totally flexible and can be made with whatever vegetables you have kicking around your fridge even if they’re clearly past their best (aka Fridge Gravel). In my case it was:

A sad looking courgette that was starting to go dimply, chopped

4 spring onions with very floppy green ends, chopped 

A green pepper that had seen better days, chopped 

A couple of rashers of smoked back bacon leftover from the pack after hubby’s bacon sarnie earlier in the week, chopped

3 floury potatoes, skin on and chopped

a fresh-ish jalapeño, with the seeds, chopped

The tail end of some garlic purée

4 eggs that needed to be used today

Extras:

Oil for frying 

Butter also for frying 

Salt and pepper 

Sriracha, to serve

METHOD:

1. add 1tsp oil to a large hot frying pan, add the courgette, peppers, spring onions and jalapeño and gently fry till all the veg is tender and starting to go brown around the edges. Then add a little garlic purée. I don’t add it at the start in case it burns. Cook for a minute and then scrape everything out of the pan into a large bowl for later.
2. Fry the bacon till crispy in the now empty pan. Once cooked, set aside in the bowl with the veggies. Cover with foil to keep everything warm.
3. Add a little more oil to the pan and fry the chopped potatoes, don’t put the heat too high as you want the potatoes cooked through and if the heat is too high, they’ll burn before they’re cooked. If I had a lid for my frying pan I’d use it at this point to keep the heat in the pan, but I don’t so a bit of tin foil draped over the pan did the job just fine. Once the potatoes start to soften in the middle add a teaspoon of butter and stir them up. The butter helps the edges brown and of course adds a buttery flavour.
4. Once the potatoes are golden and crispy, you add the veggies and bacon back to the pan and stir them in to help all the flavours combine. Add a little salt and pepper and and then serve onto the plates and tent them with foil to keep them warm while you fry the eggs.
5. Fry eggs in a little oil and once cooked, serve over the hash filled plates. Then drizzle with sriracha.  TA DA!