Cook this: Crispy potato, egg and cheese tacos from I Dream of Dinner

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Our cookbook of the week is I Dream of Dinner (so You Don’t Have To) by Ali Slagle. Over the next two days, we’ll feature another recipe from the book and an interview with the author.

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To try another recipe from the book, check out: Bacon jalapeño smash burgers.

This recipe seems straightforward enough: potato, egg and cheese. But in creating it, Ali Slagle drew on several inspiration points — starting with the breakfast taco, which is typically chopped and sautéed potato with scrambled eggs and melted cheese.

“I find it very hearty and delicious, but also texturally not super interesting. Everything is really soft,” says the recipe developer. “So, I thought about how you could get more textures from the exact same ingredients.”

Slagle also contemplated quicker ways to cook potatoes on a weeknight. (They can take time to become tender.) For this point, she looked to the late food writer Josh Ozersky and his three-minute hash browns.

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By grating potato directly into the pan, leaving plenty of room between the shreds, the moisture evaporates, and the potato crisps up in just a few minutes. Since she had the grater out, Slagle considered what else she could shred. Cheese was the natural choice.

“I thought about frico, which is kind of like crisped Parmesan. But also, there’s a type of Mexican taco called a costra taco: They put the cheese down on the griddle and get it crispy and then put the tortilla on crispy cheese,” says Slagle.

“Costra means crust. So, it’s like a cheesy crust on the tortilla. So, I thought okay, maybe I could grate the cheese on top of the crispy potato.”

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The last point of inspiration came from Swell Dive, a Brooklyn bar serving Filipino- and Tex-Mex-influenced tacos. Their breakfast taco featured a fried egg instead of the typical scrambled.

As messy as it was to eat, Slagle appreciated the egg yolk acting as a sauce. “I love the textural element of the yolk. So, I tried just frying the egg on top of this nest of grated potato and cheese and it worked.”

The best part? As one of the stylists discovered during the I Dream of Dinner photo shoot, it gets so crisp, you don’t need the tortilla, says Slagle. “You actually can just fold the crispy-potato-cheese-situation and just eat that as the tortilla.”

CRISPY POTATO, EGG & CHEESE TACOS

Cheddar
Potato
Tortillas
Eggs
Hot sauce
Lime

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Step 1

On the large holes of a box grater, grate 1/4 cup sharp Cheddar cheese (1 ounce/28 grams) and 1/2 cup of 1 russet potato.

Step 2

Warm 2 small corn or flour tortillas over your flame or in a large nonstick skillet. Transfer to a plate. Read and rehearse what’s happening next. It comes together quickly.

Step 3

Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium. Sprinkle the potato into two piles in the pan, then use a spatula or fork to spread out each pile to about the size of your tortilla. You want the strands touching but not clumped, like a snowflake. The more space between the potato, the crispier the final result. Salt the potato, then evenly sprinkle the cheese over the potato. It’s okay if some cheese comes into contact with the pan — it’ll taste like the crispy edges of a grilled cheese.

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Step 4

Make a little indent in the centre of each pile and crack an egg right there. Salt and pepper the eggs, then cover the skillet and cook until the cheese and potatoes are golden and the egg white is cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes.

Step 5

Use a spatula to wiggle the potato and cheese loose from the skillet, then slide them onto your tortillas. Eat with hot sauce and lime wedges or whatever toppings you like (keeping in mind that the yolk is a built-in sauce). Eat and repeat.

Makes: 2

Note: If you have chili powder or another warm spice, add a dash to the grated potato in step 1.

Recipe and image reprinted from I Dream of Dinner. Copyright ©2022 by Alexandra Slagle. Photographs copyright ©2022 by Mark Weinberg. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Random House.

Article content

Our cookbook of the week is I Dream of Dinner (so You Don’t Have To) by Ali Slagle. Over the next two days, we’ll feature another recipe from the book and an interview with the author.

Article content

To try another recipe from the book, check out: Bacon jalapeño smash burgers.

This recipe seems straightforward enough: potato, egg and cheese. But in creating it, Ali Slagle drew on several inspiration points — starting with the breakfast taco, which is typically chopped and sautéed potato with scrambled eggs and melted cheese.

“I find it very hearty and delicious, but also texturally not super interesting. Everything is really soft,” says the recipe developer. “So, I thought about how you could get more textures from the exact same ingredients.”

Slagle also contemplated quicker ways to cook potatoes on a weeknight. (They can take time to become tender.) For this point, she looked to the late food writer Josh Ozersky and his three-minute hash browns.

Article content

By grating potato directly into the pan, leaving plenty of room between the shreds, the moisture evaporates, and the potato crisps up in just a few minutes. Since she had the grater out, Slagle considered what else she could shred. Cheese was the natural choice.

“I thought about frico, which is kind of like crisped Parmesan. But also, there’s a type of Mexican taco called a costra taco: They put the cheese down on the griddle and get it crispy and then put the tortilla on crispy cheese,” says Slagle.

“Costra means crust. So, it’s like a cheesy crust on the tortilla. So, I thought okay, maybe I could grate the cheese on top of the crispy potato.”

Article content

The last point of inspiration came from Swell Dive, a Brooklyn bar serving Filipino- and Tex-Mex-influenced tacos. Their breakfast taco featured a fried egg instead of the typical scrambled.

As messy as it was to eat, Slagle appreciated the egg yolk acting as a sauce. “I love the textural element of the yolk. So, I tried just frying the egg on top of this nest of grated potato and cheese and it worked.”

The best part? As one of the stylists discovered during the I Dream of Dinner photo shoot, it gets so crisp, you don’t need the tortilla, says Slagle. “You actually can just fold the crispy-potato-cheese-situation and just eat that as the tortilla.”

CRISPY POTATO, EGG & CHEESE TACOS

Cheddar
Potato
Tortillas
Eggs
Hot sauce
Lime

Article content

Step 1

On the large holes of a box grater, grate 1/4 cup sharp Cheddar cheese (1 ounce/28 grams) and 1/2 cup of 1 russet potato.

Step 2

Warm 2 small corn or flour tortillas over your flame or in a large nonstick skillet. Transfer to a plate. Read and rehearse what’s happening next. It comes together quickly.

Step 3

Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium. Sprinkle the potato into two piles in the pan, then use a spatula or fork to spread out each pile to about the size of your tortilla. You want the strands touching but not clumped, like a snowflake. The more space between the potato, the crispier the final result. Salt the potato, then evenly sprinkle the cheese over the potato. It’s okay if some cheese comes into contact with the pan — it’ll taste like the crispy edges of a grilled cheese.

Article content

Step 4

Make a little indent in the centre of each pile and crack an egg right there. Salt and pepper the eggs, then cover the skillet and cook until the cheese and potatoes are golden and the egg white is cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes.

Step 5

Use a spatula to wiggle the potato and cheese loose from the skillet, then slide them onto your tortillas. Eat with hot sauce and lime wedges or whatever toppings you like (keeping in mind that the yolk is a built-in sauce). Eat and repeat.

Makes: 2

Note: If you have chili powder or another warm spice, add a dash to the grated potato in step 1.

Recipe and image reprinted from I Dream of Dinner. Copyright ©2022 by Alexandra Slagle. Photographs copyright ©2022 by Mark Weinberg. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Random House.