- Let's go get our hash.
(upbeat music)
Hello, everybody, it's Barry here.
Hope you are well, wherever you are in the world.
I'm in my car, which probably sounds
like an incredible recording studio.
If you're wondering, straight off the bat,
Barry, do you drive like a Tesla or something like that,
all the YouTubers do?
No, I generally don't really like flashy cars.
I have a fear that I'd probably ruin it, anyway.
I do a lot of recycling runs for the family
cause we eat a lot of food,
so I've basically got a go cart.
And I also worry about parking it
in supermarkets and things
cause there's always someone else that might just be like,
yeah, I've got-
You know?
I like cars,
but do you know what I like more?
I like McDonald's hash browns,
and as it's one of my last videos of the year,
I'm by McDonald's.
Yes.
I'm gonna order some hash browns.
I'm gonna eat one now fresh because I love 'em.
There's something like a comforting
pillowy, potatoey snack, I love it.
But I'll have another one which we will compare
just for the shape of the ones
that we make homemade at the end of this video
when we get to the kitchen in a bit.
Ah, here we go, here we go.
All right, just be good, just be good.
(bright music)
- [McDonald's Employee] Hi, can I help?
- Hi, can I get two hash browns, please?
- [McDonald's Employee] Anything else?
- No, that's it, please.
- [McDonald's Employee] Next window when you're ready.
- Actually, sorry, can I get three?
- [McDonald's Employee] Three hash browns?
- Yeah.
- [McDonald's Employee] Yeah, is that everything?
- Yeah, that's perfect, thank you.
Do you need to wear your face mask in a drive-thru?
I don't know.
And there's still technically a-
♪ Do do do do do do do ♪
All right, cheers, thank you.
- Thank you as well. - Thanks, bye.
Wow, that really was fast food, oh my gosh.
(laughs)
Oh my gosh. What?
It's not in a packet. (laughing)
What's going, oh, there we go.
Oh, here we, yes.
Yeah, that's what we want.
Oh, so hot. Here we go.
There is just this, almost like chunks of potato.
They've grated them sure,
but like they still feel like
they got a bit of texture to it,
not like incredibly finely like potato-masher style.
Really crunchy gold on there, that the crunch is awesome.
You break into that, and it's soft and pillowy.
I don't think there's much sort
of spices going on, or anything like that too much.
Over the years, don't get me wrong,
both in the UK and abroad, on some stag do's,
hash browns have got me through the day.
They are, sometimes, I mean,
of course, it's a little bit naughty,
but it's a treat, right?
Yeah, that's actually really interesting
because the potato chunks are like shards of glass.
Not that you'd want that in a hash brown,
but that, it's not super fine,
and that's something I have to take into consideration
as we head back to the kitchen now,
and try and replicate the hash brown.
All right, time to drive around again,
and get a bacon roll. (laughing)
All right, so I just found out
I've got the ingredients list on the McDonald's website,
and they don't actually use eggs,
which I was thinking might be the kind of thing
you'd like, kind of do the batter thing.
And then they don't use plain flour
they use corn flour which is also
known as corn starch, and potato flour.
Now, potato flour isn't something
I can just grab of the supermarket shelves that I go to.
So I'm gonna have to probably get some smash,
or instant mash potato mix, and wiz that up,
and kind a hope that's gonna do its thing.
It's seasoned, that's what else I can see,
and it does also have a little
bit of beef flavouring, but very delicately.
So I might put a stock cube in my oil.
(laughs)
- All right so we're back home,
and these are still just slightly warm,
so I'm glad that I had a little nibble on one
at the shop just to remind myself of the taste.
After going in this shop, checking the website
for the ingredients list on the McDonald's like wow.
I didn't come out with flour or eggs.
I've got some pretty interesting stuff,
including a dilemma with the beef stock,
we'll come on to that.
Then I return to my car, and it stank
of a hash brown protest, it was like
literally a McDonald's in my car.
So yeah having read the ingredients
on the McDonald's website it was like
okay we're going down one path,
but one thing we can agree on,
is that the McDonald potatoes,
They're starchy, so not really like a waxy one,
like you know, like new potatoes things like that.
This is a King Edward potato.
Russet, or Maris Piper should also do the job.
So we should see some starch now.
But hopefully you can see just by
putting that one in there already,
we're gonna need quite a lot, I'm gonna jump to that step.
It's made that quite starchy indeed,
and we haven't even started slicing it yet.
Yeah so I'm just gonna keep peeling away this potato,
And I wasn't sure actually if I
needed to peel them at all because,
when I've had hash browns in the past I thought
ah is that like, that crunchiness,
is there some sort of like skin on there
that's sort of being fried, but no.
Peel them away and plonk em-
oh my gosh, that had a little cloud then.
(laughs) starchy
Okay I'm not gonna make too many,
but I think, I don't grate potatoes that often,
I think getting four large ones, should do quite a lot.
(grating)
So we've got a box grater, and this is the largest setting,
and I only took it out for cheddar cheese on
and things like that.
(grating)
Because doing it like that is what's gonna give us
those nice big chunks like we saw, in the proper one.
I'm just still thinking to myself,
I normally use like an egg to kind of bond
anything like this together when I fried it, but anyhow,
wow.
I would say that that's more than enough for one,
maybe one potato is two hash browns, that's a lot there.
So I've got four, I'll keep grating those.
(upbeat music)
That's a lot of spud.
I'm just editing that video, and I noticed
when I was grating one of the potatoes,
One of them (laughs) splattered on the lens so,
unfortunately we've got a bit of potato cam,
for the rest of this video at certain times.
Look at the difference between
a fresh tap water and the cloudy one that we put in,
when we first peeled them to stop them discolouring,
and also we remove a bit of the initial starch.
But of course now we've grated it,
it's the equivalent, are you gonna slide
in all together, oh my gosh.
It is the equivalent of basically slicing it up super fine,
so I'm just gonna give it.
(laughs)
Look at the colour difference, a nice little bath.
All right I should be draining these off,
but, for some reason this is (laughs)
like way more enjoyable than it should be.
So I actually run that through the water six more times,
It's gotten a lot clearer than It was.
One reason you can do that is
I think it lowers the carbohydrate levels,
that might be a lie, fairly certain it does.
The other reason is we're gonna actually boil these
to make it nice and soft in the middle,
just like when making chips.
And when I make chips, or fries depending on where you are,
you don't want too much starch on there cause
it can stick together so uh, that's why we're doing it.
(bright music)
Don't put the potatoes in yet,
otherwise your gonna extend the cooking time.
Get the water just simmering.
You gotta remember your not boiling a potato this size,
your boiling a potato this size,
and if you over cook it, it's gonna basically be mush,
and your gonna loose that texture.
So basically If you can imagine when you boil an egg,
I hope you've seen me do it before,
you plunge It into cold water to stop it cooking,
That is what we're gonna do, cold water,
when these potatoes have had a couple of minutes,
straight in there, to hopefully, stop them being mushy.
Okay I'm just reading the ingredients back and,
the ratio of salt and sugar versus the actual flour
is much higher, and I don't-
(laughs)
I don't ever remember eating a hash brown
and being like ooh that's sweet,
like really sweet, or really salty.
Salt and Sugar, equal amounts.
That can go in there.
Yeah I'm feeling confident with that actually,
because, otherwise the salt and sugar
I would've done it in once we've dried the potatoes off,
which would probably have tasted
like dropping an ice lolly in sand on a beach.
Very salty, very sweet.
I'm talking from experience.
Okay, so let's carefully push these in.
It's gonna lower the temperature slightly
cause it's been in cold water,
but honestly don't cook this any more than two minutes,
and have your plunge pool ready.
So I've got a colander into an empty bowl.
Drain that water off straight away.
Shimmy, shimmy, shimmy.
Straight into it's ice bath.
Ohh!
And a little bit on my counter as well.
Now I don't know if you've had hash browns,
where the taste in the middle where,
sometimes you get them where the hash brown,
the potato is a little bit raw.
Not raw, but just semi-cooked.
If anything, under cook the potatoes,
but leave them in your bath.
All right so we've drained them off,
and look they're not mushy, they're holding together.
Ah, it's a potato.
Now this is a cheese cloth.
Which I happen to have, because I've use it before
in some cheese videos, and other bits in the past,
so really good for getting moisture out of things.
If you don't have one of these,
you can just get a lot of kitchen towel,
and pat- look at that, oh my gosh
(laughs)
and just pass it back and forth.
So you squeeze all that mois-
you wouldn't have thought all that was in there, wow look.
(laughs)
I feel like I'm milking a potato.
But the more of this moisture we squeeze out,
the better it's got a chance of actually
bonding to the other ingredients.
If it's wet it's just gonna slide off
particularly as we're not using an egg.
So my thoughts are a little bit like
when you make a burger,
I might actually just get it all flavoured.
Shape it into that patty kind of
rectangular circle thing that we want.
That is so-
(laughs)
that is so slimy and starchy.
And then I think once I've got it in the shape I want.
Cause we've got the perfect template for it haven't we.
I'm gonna get so much fluid out of these,
it's gonna take a little while,
but it'll be really, really worth it,
so I do put the effort in all right folks.
All right, hopefully now, we might have-
oh yes (laughs) a tennis ball potato.
Oh my gosh just deep frying that
would be fantastic wouldn't it.
Looks a bit like a pear.
And we're gonna need some kitchen towel
for frying later anyway, but if you want,
look you can see by putting the
kitchen towel on there that's hardly
taking on any moisture at all.
Yes, yes.
It's time to season it.
So this is a teaspoon of onion granules.
Ah they smell good.
There is some other thing on the ingredients list,
it says like E5211, I can't get that
but, I'm sure it's in star wars.
And we also need pepper, but as you know I generally
tend to like doing the fresh milk
stuff with black pepper corns but,
I bit into it, there was nothing but white pillowy centre.
So I invested in some white pepper, okay?
Which is still slightly darker, but I think its fine,
So a teaspoon of that as well.
And this is where it gets a little bit interesting,
so corn flower aka corn starch normally a thickener
for gravies and things, that is in there.
That's gonna be the real thing that hold's it all.
And of course when you put the box away,
please make sure to get as much on your counter as possible.
So here we go some instant mashed potato.
Oh my gosh it is so fine, the stuff that I bought
sometimes, it comes as flakes I was gonna wiz it up,
but that is almost, its beyond that its a fine powder,
its like a salt or pepper, its beyond salt.
It's finely milled, but is it cheating a little bit
cause you're driving more potato in there.
That looks like a potato flour
so I'm taking that all right.
(laughs)
Salt is listed twice, and the second amount is much smaller,
so I'm just literally gonna do that.
Get a little bit in there,
just cause it makes me feel like I've done it.
Yeah cause I feel like the tablespoon
I added before was a little bit overpowering,
so hopefully if we mix this all together,
it will become one kind of clumpy,
slightly more dried out moldable potato mix
that is seasoned.
Because even like looking like this,
I feel like look I can do this now.
I can literally make a hash brown in my hand like that.
Let's shape.
All right great so possibly the
coldest hash brown in the world now.
(laughs)
But it does make me realise,
its not actually that much potato especially
with the height of it as well,
like that's what I've just put down
and, pretty much achieved the height you want anyway.
There we go, oh my gosh. (laughs)
I am really happy with that, yeah baby.
(laughs)
So I'm gonna keep repeating that
and let you know how many I end up with,
but I can almost feel like now
if I try move that it is a teeny bit delicate,
so we will put them in the fridge,
or maybe the internet fridge, the freezer,
just to speed it up.
Just because actually that's probably how
they arrive at the McDonald's anyway isn't it,
and then they just start chuck them straight in the fire
which is exactly what we're gonna do.
Out of interest actually those
four potatoes gave us four
and about a half size one so almost like a potato
per hash brown which is quite surprising.
So whilst they cool and firm up
I'm gonna walk my dogs who (laughs)
they look really enthusiastic right now.
So it has been an hour, walked the dogs.
Little bit nippy out there not gonna lie.
(laughs)
Just washed up, adding oil for the
frying of the hash browns to a large pan
out there in there now, nice and cold and firmed up.
So, the McDonald's website ingredients says something
about beef flavouring being in the oil,
I think you could probably get away,
well you definitely could get away with emitting this.
But the more accessible things you can get,
this literally is a beef stock cube
that you can use to make gravy. Right?
My problem is, even if I put this in the oil now
which is obviously cold, I could end up frying
tiny little granules in the oil
and it'll actually just cook it.
So it could actually work, but my belief,
is that I'm gonna use one of these stock pots okay
so I'm only gonna use probably I mean like
A quarter of a teaspoon like that,
but we can put it in the oil.
There we go (laughs) its just in there like that.
As its more of a jelly, it should dissolve in to the oil,
and kind of flavour it beef style yeah.
I have never done this before,
so if this completely destroys the oil
then I'll just go again with oil on its own.
If also it looks disgusting once its done and its looks like
what the hell is that, and turns It
into like a gravy coloured hash brown.
We'll emit that too, but all I'm gonna do is
warm this up (laughs) it looks like a random mole.
All this for a beef flavouring,
which you might just take for granted anyway,
be like yeah it doesn't make a difference at all.
Or it could be a massive difference.
So here we go, two discs going in.
I'm hoping though I only need to cook the other two
so I can keep the others in a freezer,
and like have it for breakfast in a few days.
(laughs) jeez.
Oh yeah I'm taking them out,
because there's no egg holding it together,
you've got a much, I love the colour.
It got almost like a stringy texture to it
where we haven't really compressed it too much.
But the colour and the smell is looking amazing.
I love the fact that we've followed an
actual true ingredients list on the website
rather than just shoving the egg in it.
Little bit more strandy like that, but oh my gosh.
And there we go that is one cold floppy hash brown.
(laughs)
This is awesome, my house does smell of cold McDonald's.
I know what this tastes like, I'm not gonna, no.
But my one, trying to follow the
exact ingredients on the website.
The colour is pretty much that I've got a few more
specks of pepper than I'd like,
and its kind of gone more like a rusty.
Oh my gosh I don't know If there actually
is a stock cube in there normally, but that's amazing.
It has got not a really strong beef bite,
but much more than a standard hash brown.
We've even got that pillowy potato in there.
I think if I did this again I'd make
it just slightly thicker so we get
a bit more in there, but there is enough.
There's a real crispy outside the crunch was amazing.
The soft pillowy pre-cooked potato in there.
Crunch and softness.
I've not got a mould like McDonald's have to compress it
and make it into that patty, and its gone
a little bit more rustic, but I didn't mind that.
The freshness of it, the crunch,
but the pillowy centre still has worked a charm.
Would I do this again instead of nipping
to McDonald's for 99p for a hash brown probably not.
But that was blooming fun and tastes amazing.
Just I think a teeny bit thicker,
a little bit less pepper as well maybe,
but its become its own thing
and actually tastes a bit better.
Yeah that's the only thing I probably
should've 3D printed a hash brown mould to
really compress that down, but I love rusticness of it.
So if you do give it a try, do tag me
on your social media of choice.
Don't forget to subscribe for regular videos and food fun.
I'll see you next time, chow.
♪ Got all the notes baby like a treble clef ♪
♪ Cooking up the song like the naked chef ♪
♪ I know what your thinking British guy drinking tea ♪
♪ But I'm gangster British baby I prefer chick peas ♪
Little bonus scene just for your reference,
putting it in the freezer is pretty essential,
I thought I'd put one in the fridge
just to firm it up and see what that does.
Look, that is one that (laughs) has just expanded.
Into little hash brown Islands.
Damn right I'll still eat it.
Are you tasting the beef in the oil?
- No but you can smell it when you walk in the house.
- Okay
(laughing)
- You should smell my car.
Magic tree, McDonald's hash brown edition.
All right folks, see you later.