Making Great Hash Browns

I love hash brown potatoes. But what restaurants commonly refer to as "home fries"? I generally find them extraordinarily blah. The potatoes they seem to use for home fries are typically second-rate, and they never cook or season them very well.

I agree with this post at MrBreakfast.com, which declares:

Hash browns have the ability to make or break a breakfast. ... the taste of great hash browns can travel right from the mouth to the soul.

The nice thing about hash browns is that you get the outside nice and crispy. The thin shreds of potato make it much easier to get that crispiness.

I made some hash browns on this snowy weekend, and they turned out pretty well. According to this post at Simply Recipes, one of the keys is to get all the moisture you can out of the potatoes before throwing them into a skillet.

One thing I didn't do this weekend that also seems helpful (to make them nice and crispy) is to spread a think layer of potatoes in the skillet. If you drop a thick pile of hash browns in the pan, some of them will not make steady contact with the heating surface of the skillet.