Home › Steer Beef and Veal › Corned Beef Hash
Corned Beef Hash
CORNED BEEF COLD BOILED POTATOES EVAPORATED MILK EGGS Use canned or leftover corned beef and chop it fairly fine. Have potatoes cooked the night before in their jackets. Peel and chop them. This type of hash turns out better if there are slightly more chopped potatoes than chopped corned beef. Grease a thick frying pan well with bacon grease, mix corned beef and potatoes in the pan, add evaporated milk until it rises to about 1/3 the depth of the meat-potato mixture, set over slow heat, cover and let simmer. Stir several times during the first 10-15 minutes, then set in hot ashes and let brown underneath for 1/2 hour, or until the consistency pleases you. You may add a little more evaporated milk to make it wetter, or leave the cover off toward the end to dry it out. Just before you are ready to eat, drop required number of eggs on top of hash, cover tightly, and let eggs cook in the steam.
A camp hash built for a wood fire and a heavy pan, with no measurements at all. The proportions are simple enough to eyeball, but two details in the original need translating for a home range.
- QuantitiesNothing is measured. A workable ratio is about 12 oz chopped corned beef to 1 lb cooked potatoes, which serves three or four with an egg each.
- Potatoes cooked the night beforeThis is not just convenience. Chilled boiled potatoes hold their shape when chopped and fried instead of collapsing into paste, so cook them at least several hours ahead and refrigerate.
- Evaporated milkUnsweetened canned milk was the camp standby because it kept without ice. It adds a little sugar and protein that help the crust brown. Whole milk or half-and-half works, though the bottom will set slightly less firmly.
- "Set in hot ashes"The pan is being moved off direct flame onto banked embers for gentle, even bottom heat. On a stove, use the lowest burner setting with a heat diffuser; the original gives no oven temperature, but a covered pan in a low oven for the half hour is a rough stand-in, though it will brown the bottom less.
- Bacon greaseUse enough to coat the pan generously, a tablespoon or more. Apart from the evaporated milk and what renders from the beef, this is the fat in the dish, and a thin film will stick.
- Canned corned beefCanned corned beef is far saltier and more finely textured than leftover boiled brisket. Do not add salt until you have tasted the finished hash.
- The eggsSteaming eggs on top under a tight lid takes roughly 4 to 6 minutes for set whites and soft yolks. Make shallow wells in the hash first so they do not slide, and check early since the residual heat of a cast-iron pan keeps cooking them.
- Getting a crustOnce the milk is absorbed, stop stirring entirely. The browned bottom layer only forms if the hash is left undisturbed, and as the original says, the lid comes off toward the end if the mixture is still loose.