Lesson V - making Easy Scallop Potatoes
Knowing things were about to get messy, she selected the right bowl for what was coming. Next, she grabbed a couple cans of cream of mushroom soup, some heavy cream and a little sour cream. The waiting bowl welcomed the contents of the soup cans and then she threw in a dollop of sour cream on top of that. It was a little too thick so she splashed in a little heavy cream. Not quite enough. She needed a little more, so she put in another splash, watching the wet, heavy cream dance on the surface of the soup mixture. She stirred quickly and then set the bowl aside to work on the next ingredients. For the cheese, she grabbed some marble and Asiago that she had to use up and then she grated it hard, up and down, up and down until all the cheese was used up and there was a messy pile of grated cheese on the counter. She set half of it aside, the rest she threw into the bowl and mixed into the soup mixture. She chopped up her sweet onion and threw it into the bowl. Next, she sliced up the bacon and remembering lesson IV on bacon bits, she turned the pan on low and put the lid on it. While she was waiting for the bacon, she cubed up the ham. Once the bacon was done and drained, she put it in the soup mixture and wiped out some of the bacon fat, leaving some to cook the ham in. Remembering lesson II on searing, she turned the pan on medium and let it get nice and evenly hot. After 5 minutes she turned it up really hot until the bacon fat started sizzling. In goes the ham and she starts flipping the pan in a wild orgy of hot bacon fat and sizzling ham… her mind drifted back to that wild party in college, before she met Jeff. There was some ham sizzling that night too, if you know what I mean, and I think you do…
It was a Hawai’ian pig roast.
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Pervert.
Once the ham was done, she mixed that into the soup mixture. Now it was time to do the potatoes. She peeled and washed them and then lined them up on the cutting board. She liked a good thick slice on her potato. So thick… when she had them all cut up, she boiled a big pot of water. She placed the potato slices in the bubbling water and watched them dance. While she was waiting, she put a thin layer of the soup mixture on the bottom of a baking dish. She knew she didn’t have to wait long for the spuds and after 3 minutes or so, took one of the potato slices out and using a fork, penetrated the slice. Not too deep so told herself. Remember, you only want the tip to go in. It went in about 1/3 of the way of the slice which is just about perfect. She carefully drained the spuds and placed a layer on the bottom of the baking dish. Once the bottom was covered in potato, she dusted the spuds with a little Cranky Jimmy’s Original and then she covered it with a layer of the soup mixture, more spuds, more Original, more soup until everything was used up. At the end, after taking off the tin foil, she put the rest of the shredded cheese on top and broiled it to perfection cuz she remembered lesson III on broiling. She served it with some Shake and Bake chicken, and steamed broccoli. That night it got so hot in the bedroom the scented candles lit themselves!
Hopefully I’ve taught you a couple of my tips and tricks and none of them so far are very strenuous, and hopefully your love life has seen more scented candles and massages come out of nowhere. As with all of these lessons, I’m going to give you a sexy narrative and then recap in plain English. Today’s lesson is pretty easy. Not a lot of effort, but the reward is huge, and when it comes to rewards, size DOES matter! Today I am going to show you how to make Easy Scallop Potatoes. As always, you can read the recipe on the website for the ingredient details, but on here I am going to focus on technique and method.
This one is pretty easy and it’s not a lot of work. You can use it as a side dish or a main. It is a little bit rich because of all the cheese, ham and bacon so you’re gonna wanna pair it with something not too rich.
Start with the soup mixture. This is about how thick you want the soup mixture to be before you add everything into it. If it’s too thick, you can use some sour cream, milk or heavy cream to thin it out. Don’t make it too thin. You want it to plop in the bowl and be able to see where it landed, but then after 10 seconds it has smoothed out. Add all the stuff to it and have it ready to go.
Next, the onion. Dice the onion about the size of a pencil eraser-ish. Add to the soup mixture.
Cut up and cook the bacon, drain (save some of the fat in the pan) and add the cooked bacon bits to the soup mixture. This is about what you want to see in the pan. Nice and chewy. You don’t want hard and crunchy. See Lesson IV.
Dice the ham about the size, maybe a little larger. See lesson II on searing and sear them puppies!
This is about the amount of sear you want on the ham. Some nice crispy pieces, some nice chewy pieces. Perfection.
This is about how thick you want to cut the potatoes. If you cut them thinner, they may break when you boil them. Thicker and they might not cook evenly.
This is about as far as you want the fork to go into the potato. Any softer and you’ve got mashed potatoes.
Layer soup, potato, Cranky Jimmy’s Original, soup, potato, Original, until you’re done. If there’s any broken or small pieces, put them in the corners or in between the bigger pieces.
This is the finished product with a good low broil. We usually do a double cheese broil. That is, cheese on top, broil to perfection and then put another layer of cheese on top of that and broil that to perfection. It’s worth the effort!
You can skip some steps and it will still be good. For example, if you don’t feel like searing the ham like lesson II, broiling the cheese like lesson III, or doing the bacon bits like lesson IV, it will still be good. If you do it with all these steps it’s worth 4 Hubba Hubbas. If you just plop the soup mixture in the baking dish and don’t put any effort into it, it’s still worth 2 Hubba Hubbas. You can’t go wrong with this one. Click on link below to go straight to the recipe.
Easy Scallop Potatoes