Hashed Pizza

Is comprised of hash (grated potatoes), a pinch of salt, mozzarella cheese, chopped basil and some freshly ground pepper. It's cooked in a cast iron skillet that's been warmed up and has had a tablespoon of olive oil in it. It's pretty straight forward, grate some potatoes, toss into skillet, fry, flip when browned, fry some more, after a minute, sprinkle some mozzarella and fresh pepper, and when the cheese is melted, plate the dish and throw on the basil. Its pretty easy from here to continue on and make other Hashed Pizza creations in this style. What hit surprised me was the simplicity of the act compared to the time leading up to it.

I didn't wake up trying to create Hashed Pizza. I've been cooking for years now.  I've been experimenting with grating potatoes for the past two weeks since I bought my course grater [for a month including the time I spent zesting the potatoes].  I've been playing with how I slice basil for at least two years, and I've had the specific basil leaves for a few days from an alternate dish. The fact that I brought out the basil originally was so it didn't all go bad before I could use it. I've been working the cast iron skillet for almost as long as I've been cooking. I've preferred Kosher Salt (for the size of its flakes) and fresh ground pepper for at least three years. I used the mozzarella for a similar reason to the basil, didn't want it to go bad before I used it all.

All these small conscious and unconscious acts [as well as others I didn't think to mention] lead up to the Hashed Pizza. What a friend might call a "spur of the moment cooking act" is actually the tail end to long process [or maybe just the middle of a longer one]. Things like this don't just happen, and yet they do.