I recently read Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw: Excursions In The Great Weird North by Will Ferguson (click through to read my review), which is a collection of essays about various trips to towns and regions across Canada. My #readcookeat radar was on high alert, scanning the pages, looking for a mention of something decidedly delicious-sounding that I could recreate. Well, sadly, I didn't actually find much, but there was this mention :
p208 This cafe is on St George Street, and it's called The Copper Kettle or The Iron Griddle or The Brass Bucket. A very friendly place. With very friendly service. Our waitress is cornfed and all smiles, and she deals us our menus as though they are a pair of oversized playing cards. Though I don't know why she bothers with menus, because she has, in her cheerful way, already decided for us. "Try the hogslop," she says, beaming.
Ian and I exchange glances.
"You're telling us we should try the hogslop?"
"Oh yes, it's very good."
"Okay. Two hogslops."
Turns out hogslop is not a communal practical joke played by Dresdenians on hapless outsiders. Nor is it an actual slop à la hogs. No, hogslop - a Dresden speciality, it seems - is a churned mix of potatoes, bacon, ham and onions. It has the texture and aroma of, well, hogslop. But it tastes mighty fine (potato, bacon, ham, onions : how can you go wrong?), even if the effect that follows it is not unlike how one might feel after consuming a half-sack of wet cement.
Well, despite the reference to a sack of cement, this actually really appealed to me, as a kid-friendly globecooking recipe. I decided to go looking on google for inspiration, and I did find two recipes that initially sounded promising - Hog Slop Casserole and Pig Slop. However, on closer inspection, they were actually nothing like the original meal. Hmmmm. Not one to give up, I managed to find an archived copy of the menu card for the Burns Restaurant in Dresden online, which has this mention on it : "Two scrambled eggs mixed with our hog slop mixture of diced ham, bacon, onions, Italian sausage and diced potatoes, then hollandaise sauce and shredded cheddar." Well, that sounded like a bit of a meat overdose, so I went back to the original recipe from the book, using just bacon, onions and potatoes. It was very tasty, with a fried egg on the side.
Hogslop
ingredients :
2 packets of bacon lardons
1 large onion
4 medium potatoes
Peel and chop the onion and put it in a large frying pan with the bacon lardons. Fry over a gentle heat for 10 minutes or so until the onion is soft and the lardons have taken on some colour.
This would be a great recipe for using up leftover baked potatoes (or roast potatoes or mashed potatoes - whatever you've got) but I microwaved mine for 15-20 minutes, until they were cooked all the way through. After removing them from the oven, I put them on a plate one at a time and crushed them with a masher. I still left them in quite large pieces though, but this is down to personal taste.
Add the mashed potato the pan and cook for a further 10 minutes, for everything to heat through. The potatoes will soak up all of the fat from the bacon, but you could always add extra butter, if necessary. I had a quick taste and it was salty enough, but feel free to add extra, if you want.
I decided to serve a mound of hogslop with a fried egg, which was a stroke of genius, as it saved the hogslop from being too dry. This would be great for breakfast or brunch, as well as lunch or dinner.
Linking up with the #readcookeat challenge over at Chez Maximka.
*** Don't miss my globecooking recipe index ! More recipes from Canada here ***
Adding to the #KitchenClearout linky as a great way of using up leftover baked potatoes.
Adding to the #KitchenClearout linky as a great way of using up leftover baked potatoes.
Your recipe is very close to my late father's speciality which was known as 'Dad's fried tates'. It was pretty much the only thing he cooked other than basics like eggs - and Vesta curries 😃 . He would use cold boiled potatoes from the day before and would also have any previous cooked leftover veg, especially cabbage and carrots. Ham can be substituted for the bacon but bacon is best in my opinion. Excellent with fried eggs as you have said plus tomato ketchup or brown sauce. My dad rarely cooked because my mum was an excellent cook and loved to do it but he did more than his fair share of the household tasks and childcare as they both worked full-time. Unusual for their generation - he would be 90 this year if still alive. This is a lovely reminder and I realise I haven't made it for ages, time to put it back on our menu.
ReplyDeleteNever heard it referred to as hogslop but as his father was a pig foreman on a farm, where they all had to work from a young age, I'm pretty sure he would never have called it that 😀
Aww glad it brought back happy memories of your dad. I could see this as a great way of using up leftover cooked potatoes :)
DeleteSounds terrible, looks yummy
ReplyDeleteHogslop? What a fabulous conversation starter over dinner! Looks nice and easy, too.
ReplyDeleteSounds great
ReplyDeleteLove the name! Never heard of it, but what a great way to use leftovers. I imagine this would keep you warm and full for a while, especially in Canada. I admire your determination to find the exact recipe, and even finding an old menu card. :)
ReplyDeleteI was on a bit of a mission in the end ! lol :-)
DeleteMargaret Clarkson
ReplyDeleteThis is very similar to our Northern English dish "Panaggerty"
Ahh you're right, I made that once too :)
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