Leftover Breakfast Creation (More Twice-Cooked Food)

The highlight of dinner last night was my first attempt at aligot, a cheesy, garlicky, goopy version of mashed potatoes from the Auvergne region of France that I learned about in the current (April 2009) issue of Cook’s Illustrated (pages 18-19). The boys had left the table in the same fashion they had eaten—quickly and recklessly—and I was left staring at the remains of what I had started preparing four hours earlier and which had then mostly disappeared in about fifteen minutes of nearly wordless feeding when the vision of this morning’s breakfast came to me. The main dish had been a corned beef brisket, and since corned beef hash has long been a favorite breakfast treat of mine, the combination of potatoes and corned beef seemed natural, but there was a step before that as well. In the same post-dinner haze minutes earlier I had thought of another breakfast rarity I treasure: pan-fried mashed potato patties. Well, the combination was as good or better than I had hoped: pan-fried corned beef aligot patties. The crispy light brown surface, the soft, gooey, cheesy, interior, the salty shreds of the corned beef, and the underlying pleasure of garlic infusing every bite. Fortunately I have enough left for at least one more patty.