Tinned corned beef* is a product that resists reinvention. Slouched on bright yellow beanbags in the “ideas hub” at an east London branding agency, the bright marketing sparks charged with this task must look on in despair as a cornucopia of 1970s processed foods, from the Arctic roll to Findus crispy pancakes, take on an ironic halo of #noshtalgia, while corned beef remains beyond the pale.
Indelibly linked with the grey Britain of postwar rationing, corned beef suffers from ugly snobbery. “So stigmatised, it is deemed only fit for pensioners or the unemployed,” as one fan once wrote in the Guardian (note: Essex’s Becontree Estate was nicknamed Corned Beef City as a dig at the poverty of its residents). Today, corned beef is most likely to crop up, not in recipes in glossy magazine (high-quality traditional makers are incredibly rare), but in inescapably demoralising lists of what you should donate to food banks or stockpile in the event of a chaotic no-deal Brexit.
It is a food dogged by an aura of crisis, deprivation and controversy. Over the centuries, it has been blamed for exacerbating everything from the Irish potato famine to obesity levels in Tonga. In recent years, it has been embroiled in scandals about deforestation and slave labour in South America, and the contamination of beef supplies with horsemeat and veterinary painkillers. Look past that dread PR and find a corned beef brand that reports a firm commitment to sustainability, and, even then, you have to wrestle your shopping into submission due to a bizarre insistence among manufacturers on using those weird tapered tins, opened with tiny keys that frequently do not work. Dogged consumers are left digging meat out from between razor-sharp edges with a kitchen knife, having finally prised open that obtusely shaped can with a tin opener … or a hammer and chisel.
Yet, despite all that baggage, say the words: corned beef hash, and, immediately, a significant proportion of Britain will begin to drool – transported by a meal that can provide comfort in even the bleakest of mid-winters. Corned beef hash satisfies something deep in the freezing northern European soul. But only if it is done right, which is where How to Eat [HTE] – the series examining how best to eat Britain’s favourite foods – comes in.
* Not to be confused with what Americans (and, historically, the Irish) call “corned beef”, known in Britain as salt beef. That is a very different food to canned corned beef: salted beef offcuts, minced and suspended in their own fat, sterilised and shipped to Europe from South America.
Mashed potato v fried potatoes
Talking of transatlantic confusion (nay, cultural imperialism), in the aftermath of Britain’s early-2010s obsession with trashy US diner food, be careful when ordering corned beef hash. It is now frequently rendered as a mess of hard-fried potatoes, onions and salt beef.
Objectively, at its best, this US interloper may be a tastier dish, a superior creation, but it is not what we commonly expect of corned beef hash. It is unfamiliar and, in its lack of density and heft, gravy and soothing mash, the comforting qualities of the UK original are absent. It is a gastronomic elevation of a dish that, instead, should be the simplest of reassuring nursery foods. Metaphorically and psychologically speaking, it is a stiff pat on the back from a confident, stylish New Yorker, when, deep down, what you really want is a soft, all-enveloping hug from mummy (AKA the mashed potato).
There is some intermediate (con)fusion of the US-UK methods. Some people simmer the potatoes and other ingredients in stock until soft or layer the potatoes like a hotpot and, variously, oven bake them (and even cover the hash with cheese and grill it; this is not a shepherd’s pie!). But, to be blunt, all those methods are wrong. This dish is a mashed potato-based meal.
There is some suggestion that the basic, classic form of hash – fried onions, mash, chopped corned beef – is most prevalent in the north-west of England. If this is true, it confirms that region’s leadership in this field. If you wish (it is a bit of a faff), you can cook then fry off the mash mixture in patties and break those up before serving – in order to build a little welcome crunch into the hash – but, at root, the corned beef hash should be a huge, soft hill that you can smoothly motor through with a spoon.
Gravy
Fundamentally, corned beef hash is all about the gravy. The gravy is the mighty meaty wave, the savoury tsunami, the rip current that should wash over and drown this otherwise bland dish in flavour. It should sweep you off your feet. Start with a butter, garlic, onion and beef stock base, and then freestyle with whatever you have to hand: old red wine, brown sauce, soy, Worcestershire sauce, to broaden and add 3D depth to that canvas.
Heat
A gentle tingle at the fringes of your hash is not unwelcome (tabasco, grain mustard etc), but cook it in as you fry your initial onions. That will take the edge of it. This is not a dish to enliven with fresh chillies or hot sauce. Both would clash horribly with the gravy. Any heat should shimmer in the distance, way behind the gravy’s savoury thwack. A little spicy kick, a gentle underlying heat is fine, anything palpably chilli hot is not.
Egg
Yes, yes and thrice yes. Fried not poached, please. This is not a dish in which concern for your arteries should figure. Be in no doubt, we are troughing here. This is a meal that should immobilise you. Leave you bloated and beached. Clear your diary. But that egg is not mere gluttony, it makes culinary sense, too. The soft yolk adds a layer of richness and the texture of that fried white is a creamy counterpoint to the starchy potato.
Vegetable, sides and garnishes
Does corned beef hash need any? Arguably, no. Add a condiment [see, sauces], and you have a complete meal. However, there are certain vegetables that will bring a new mineral dimension to the dish. It is rather like putting a conservatory on a perfectly liveable suburban semi. It might be nice. But it is not essential.
Good:
Shredded, buttered cabbage, sprouts or other veg (eg broccoli) that offers a pointed iron-rich tang.
A little scattered crispy bacon or crispy onions: both of which add a some textural va va voom and, respectively, complementary layers of salty or sweet flavour.
Pickled red cabbage or beetroot; their vinegary sharpness is a kind of fastidious punctuation of this otherwise overly verbose, long-winded paragraph. Each brings definition and clarity to the dish, periodically clearing your palate (and mind) before the next meat ’n’ potatoes assault.
Bad:
Peas, like carrots, are ineffectual in a corned beef hash, unless you add them by the bucket (turning it into a very different dish). The hint of sweetness they provide is too meek to assert itself.
Fresh or fried bell peppers have no place in this dish … or in food generally (see also, oven-roasted tomatoes).
Sweetcorn: no.
Baked beans: is that middling, juvenile sweetness really sufficient yin to the yang of the hash? In HTE’s opinion, it is not.
Asparagus is probably the most overrated vegetable on Earth and, in a dish that you are going to tackle with a spoon and fork, is a logistical minefield. If you need to get a knife out to cut anything in a corned beef hash, you have failed at the dish.
Creamed spinach (or any creamed vegetable) will make an unholy, murky mess of your gravy; think: Exxon Valdez-style pollution.
The fallback of middling pub chefs and pretentious home cooks, this dish does not require any titivation with twee, tied bundles of chives or fronds of flat-leaf parsley. Neither adds anything to a hash, other than an unpleasant sense that someone has emptied their lawnmower over your tea.
Bread: ordinarily, HTE is firmly in the bread-with-everything, carbs-on-carbs camp. But, c’mon, this is an unusually filling meal. Serving it with buttered sourdough or soda bread is overkill.
Sauces
You will occasionally see people (Scandinavians, mostly), arguing that a hash should be served with a dollop of hollandaise or béarnaise, but that seems an unnecessarily rich addition to such a gutsy dish. An egg yolk is as far as you should go down that path. Otherwise, stick to tomato sauce. Its piquant sweetness is just the pick-me-up, the periodic pep, you need when tackling this mountain range of meat and potatoes.
Equipment
Spoon, fork and a large, deep (to retain all that gravy) wide-rimmed bowl. That wide-rim is a useful ledge on which you can splodge your ketchup and then conveniently dip in-and-out of it, as you see fit.
When
There is a hardcore who regard hash as a hangover restorative, but, for HTE, it is too heavy for that role. This is not a dish to get you moving, but one that, on a filthy winter’s night, after warming the marrow of your bones should lull you into a carb-coma such that you are pleasantly incapable of doing anything more strenuous than reaching for the remote control. Corned beef hash is your tea, not your dinner and – rare lazy brunches apart – certainly not a breakfast dish.
Drink
Nothing too fizzy: a glass of red, tea, water, a pale cask ale. You need all available stomach space. Taking on unnecessary carbon dioxide will only lead to indigestion.
So, corned beef hash, how do you eat yours?
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