Funeral potato recipes

In my culture everyone helps out neighbors with funerals. One of the things we do is feed their visiting family members who've traveled far. The most famous thing we feed them is a dish called funeral potatoes. One explanation is that by having a standard recipe that's widely passed around, helpful neighbors don't get into trouble quality-wise or food sanitation-wise. In other words, follow the recipe to the letter, bring it hot at the scheduled time and nobody goes home with food poisoning.

Left-overs?

Surprisingly, though edible, this dish is not that good the next day because it dries out (the potatoes absorb moisture out of the soup and sour cream). If you add a greater quantity of liquid ingredients (like sour cream and soup), it may continue to be suitably edible the next day because it was a little soupier on the first day. However, if you make it too soupy, it might be less edible the day of as well as lead to accidents (dressed-up folk dripping product on their finest).

Note that Campbell's brand cream of ... soups come in 10.5 ounce cans. This is what's used and not the big, 22-ounce can.

Yield

Roughly one of those low-profile, 13×8 Pyrex dishes.

---

Basic recipe

This may have been my brother's once upon a time and I modified it. As hash browns come in 4lb bags where I live, I simply increase the cheese to ¾lb.

Ingredients

3 or 4 lbs	potatoes, grated
1 tbsp	oil
4 tbsp	butter (½ stick)
1 large	grated onion, finely chopped
—	salt and fresh-ground pepper
2 cloves	garlic, finely minced
2 cups	sour cream (16 oz)
1 can	Cream of Mushroom® (or other velouté, small can)
1 cup	grated cheese (about 4 oz)
—	Panko bread crumbs (optional)

Preparation

0. Microwave hashbrown or other potatoes to cook partially—right in the bag. This will take from 6-10 minutes.

1. Clarify onion in oil and 1 tbsp butter, and some salt over medium heat, add garlic 30 seconds before then mixing in sour cream and remaining 3 tbps butter.

2. When smooth, fold in potatoes, continue to heat. Fold in cheese.

3. Put mixture into a buttered Pyrex pan, 13"×9" and cover tightly with foil.

4. Bake 60 minutes at 325°.

5. Remove foil, top with bread crumbs and brown carefully on middle rack under broiler for 3-5 minutes.

Many can't resist the temptation to strew Corn Flakes® or other horrors on this dish. It's an option, however.