Sausage & Sweet Potato Hash

Sausage and potato hash that is still hot at lunch. Pack it wet, press out the air pockets, and check the sausage label for wheat based filler.

Makes

2 lunches

Hands on

25 min

Start to finish

30 min

Keeps

3 days in the fridge

• 2russet potatoes, cut into half inch cubes
• 1/2 poundbreakfast sausageThe real label check on this page. Sausage is commonly bound with a wheat based filler, and the seasoning blend can carry wheat as well.
• 1onion, chopped
• 1red bell pepper, chopped
• 2 tablespoonsoil
• 1/3 cupchicken stockThis is what keeps the hash from arriving lukewarm. Some stocks flavor with wheat or barley.
• 1/2 teaspoonsmoked paprika
• salt
• black pepper

1. Fill the thermos with boiling water and cap it.
2. Boil the potato cubes for six minutes, until a knife goes in with a little resistance left. Drain them well.
3. Brown the sausage in a wide skillet, breaking it up. Lift it out and pour off all but a spoonful of the fat.
4. Add the oil and the potatoes in one layer. Leave them alone for four minutes, then turn them and cook until browned on most sides.
5. Add the onion and pepper and cook for five minutes, until soft. Return the sausage and add the paprika, salt and pepper.
6. Pour in the stock and stir, scraping the pan, for about a minute. Stop while the hash still looks glossy and wet.
7. Empty the thermos and pack the hash in steaming, pressing it down gently as you go, right to the top.

1. Press it down as you fill. Cubed food traps air pockets through the middle of the thermos, and every pocket is cold by noon.
2. It has to look wetter in the pan than you would want it on a plate. Dry hash in steel is lukewarm hash at lunch.
3. A fried egg on top does not travel. It goes rubbery and weeps into the potatoes. Send a hard boiled egg alongside instead.
4. Ketchup goes in a small lidded pot. Stirred through in the morning it softens the potatoes and turns the edges pink.

• It arrives lukewarm even though the thermos was preheated. The hash went in dry and full of air pockets.
• The potatoes are gray and falling apart. They were parboiled past six minutes before they hit the pan.
• The whole thing tastes greasy. The sausage fat stayed in the skillet and the potatoes soaked it up.

Breakfast sausage is the one to check, and check it again whenever you switch brands. Plenty of American breakfast sausage is pork and spices and nothing else, but binders and extenders are common across the category, and the seasoning mix can carry wheat even when the meat does not. Buy sausage that says gluten free on the package rather than loose patties from a butcher counter, where the seasoning is rarely written down anywhere you can read it. The chicken stock is the second check, since some brands flavor with wheat or barley. Potatoes, onion, pepper and paprika are fine as they come.