Friday, June 01, 2007 What to do with the last couple of potatoes Sometimes I prefer creating dishes from the dregs of the fridge and/or storecupboard rather than facing a bulging fridge - it's as if I have too many decisions to make and flit from idea to idea like a gastronomic butterfly and then make no decision at all. I end up with nibbling on some cheese and realise I'm no longer hungry. But today I have a single egg, the last few Jersey Royals and some smoked bacon so a thinly sliced potato, bacon bits and fried egg hash brunch dish. Years ago I often used to gets those boxes of a farmhouse potato hash dishes from M&S. They were generally full of potato cubes, bits of bacon or ham, maybe mushrooms and a kind of eggy mixture all crammed into a long-life foil packet. You'd squeeze the mixture out into a pan and break it up with a wooden spoon and heat it up until it resembled some tasty brunch dish. They weren't bad but the egg was a little reconstituted. I am not sure if they're still around but this homage to an old standby was way more delicious, the fresh egg definitely helped. The potatoes were boiled until just cooked and sliced thinly to eke out as much as possible. The cooked potatoes was added to the bacon lardons and then the egg was cracked into the middle of the pan. The smokiness pervaded through