Weeknight Vegetable Hash

This post is going to be dedicated to a fantastic weeknight meal, one that requires a bit of technique, but nothing that even the most inexperienced person can’t do without a little practice. A nice vegetable hash or fried rice with a bit of protein in it is an absolutely incredible and easy weeknight meal. This dish is really great to make in order to learn about vegetable prep, cooking for yourself, and making a super flavorful dish that seems like it requires a lot of technique, but is actually fairly simple.

This specific dish is also an excellent lesson in how to prepare for cooking, and getting everything ready before you actually start. The term “Mise En Place” gets used a lot with regards to this, and it translates from French to “everything has a place.” What it refers to is having all of your vegetables cut, all of your proteins seasoned, all of your sauces measured, and anything else fully ready to be thrown into the pan from the second you turn the gas on. It honestly makes a big difference in the outcome of your food when you aren’t scrambling to cut up scallions and season protein. It will actually affect the outcome of your food, make cooking less stressful, and let you actually discover how you like to cook- When you aren’t stressing, you can be creative and let yourself go.

You can honestly use whichever vegetables you like in this, but if you don’t at least use onions and garlic you’re missing out on a lot of flavor. Those two are the absolute best tools in a burgeoning cooks arsenal- they add an immeasurable body and flavor to any dish, and onions are a great way for a new cook to learn how to use a knife. Being comfortable with a knife is vital to getting better in the kitchen- if you aren’t confident with cutting vegetables, you will really struggle in having a sense of security doing anything in the kitchen.

My method for this dish is simple- season your protein(you can do this hours in advance to really let your seasoning soak in), cut up all of your veggies, get them ready to cook, and once that’s done, you can turn the gas on.

For this dish, I used four bone-in, skin on chicken thighs. I marinated them in a gochujang(Korean fermented pepper paste) barbecue sauce that I developed. It’s bright, vinegary, with a little kick and a bit of sweetness. I have another post that should be up next week that details how I made that. What’s important is that you use your marinade/sauce as a layered flavor. For this recipe, you want to use something that has enough acid in it so it will actually break down the chicken, and enough other flavoring in it that will work with the rest of the items of this dish. As always, I opted for a sweet/heat element. After setting my chicken in the fridge to marinade, I’ll begin cutting my veggies. I used onions, carrots, mushrooms, cauliflower, scallions, fresh garlic and smoked garlic (this is not widely available- whenever I use my smoker, I always cut a head of garlic in half widthwise and set it in the smoker until it gets soft. This is a super easy and useful way to utilize every square inch of your smoker. You can also simply roast your garlic in some tin foil with a bit of olive oil whenever you have your oven on. Adding roasted or smoked garlic is a great way to add depth of flavor to a dish. Using it in tandem with fresh garlic only adds to those layers. Like a good ogre, food should be layered and complex.). Dice the onion, cut the carrot into either chunks or coins, rip the cauliflower into medium sized flowers, cut the mushrooms into thirds/quarters depending on their size. When cutting the scallions, cut off the root end of the whites. Cut the whites into thin rounds, and cut the greens into slightly thicker rounds. Add the whites to the rest of the onions, and save the greens for garnish. Once you have all of this done, preheat your oven to 350 and place a rimmed baking sheet into the oven. Enjoy the time until your oven is ready, because once it’s ready you should focus only on cooking. In an oven-safe skillet, preferably a cast-iron or stainless steel, which is big enough to comfortably fit all of your protein, add enough oil (anything neutral-vegetable/canola will work great) to cover the bottom of the pan. Get it hot- almost to a smoke, and place in your chicken skin side down. Keep that going for 3-5 minutes on the stove, flip, and then transfer to the oven. Once that’s in, toss your cauliflower with salt, pepper, paprika, and olive oil, and place it on the preheated baking sheet. We are roasting the cauliflower because it takes longer than the rest of the vegetables to cook. At this point is when you can truly up the depth of the dish, but is not wholly necessary. I add some kind of cured pork product, such as bacon, pancetta, or guanciale, to the skillet in which I plan on cooking the hash. This will add a lot of salt content, so be careful and make sure you taste your food before and after you season. Sweat out the onions/garlic in a large skillet with olive oil (if you cooked with pork, you shouldn’t have to add oil to the pot, if not just a little to make sure nothing sticks). Once the onions begin to get translucent, I would add gochujang to the pot. I understand that this is an ingredient that most people don’t have, and that some don’t feel comfortable using, but it really is delicious. It adds a sweet, spicy, funky deliciousness to the dish. If you can’t get your hands on any, that’s ok. There isn’t really anything that substitutes for it, but there are a few things that you could use in order to get a similar effect. You could add the sauce that marinated the protein in, as long as a bit of mustard. You can add tomato paste and a vinegary hot sauce. You could add a different type of chili paste. Get creative and use something that will add depth to the dish. After cooking that out (3-5 minutes), add your carrots and mushrooms. Cook the chicken until it reaches 155 in the thickest part of the thighs, and let it rest for a few minutes. Season the hash with paprika, oregano, and whatever hot spice you prefer- I used cayenne and Louisiana hot sauce here, but anything will work to just add a little kick to the dish. Plate up with a sprinkle of Paprika all over the plate, and garnish with the reserved scallions. Enjoy an absolutely delicious, filling and somewhat, kinda, not totally unhealthy meal, and revel in the fact that you did all of the work yourself.