recipe: ramps and 'taters

this is a classic springtime thing, and traditionalists will tell you it should properly be cooked with baconfat, but if you are vegetarian or maybe just don't like cooking bacon (i will happily eat it, but i don't like bacon grease in my kitchen), you can use butter or even olive oil as your fat. the real star is the ramps.

so mmmkay, cut up your ramps into pieces of the size you would like to eat. remember that the cook down a lot smaller than they are. hot up your chosen fat in a pan over medium heat and cook your ramps down until they are bright green and smallish. what you're doing here is infusing your fat with delicious ramp flavor.

remove the ramps from the pan because you don't want to overcook them.

then toss in your potatoes, cut to a size and shape you like to eat. i like a rough dice. distribute them evenly in the pan season them (salt, pepper, whatever you like) and then DO NOT TOUCH THEM. seriously. leave them alone until they are brown on the bottom. unless you cut your potatoes into huge honkin' monoliths, they're probably cooked through a third to halfway. you can tell because the cooked part is a little more translucent than the uncooked tops.

when they're nicely brown on the bottom, flip them over. season the other side, cook them about the same amount of time. maybe cover with a lid part of the time if you need to speed up the cooking, but finish them open so you still have crunchy brown outsides. when the potatoes are about done, toss the ramps back in there and mix it all up.

it's good by itself, and it's good with eggs. it's good with fish, too. and it you have leftover it's good if you scramble some eggs right on top of the leftover in a fry pan the next day.

go crazy with it, but don't expect to smell nice.