Corned Beef Hash - with added veg

"Doesn't it look like dog food, though?"

I'll accept those comments now, here, before I even start this post. Yes, come on, get them all out in the open. I know you're thinking them, and to be fair, I'd probably have to agree with you, although I don't feed my dog the kind of dog food that you're talking about - which is possibly why I am able to tolerate corned beef. In fact, I'd go so far to say I really rather like it. Which is pretty contradictory given my usual mantra of fresh, local, organic. So I'll accept that criticism too.

Finished? I'll get on with the main event.

While I've never been ashamed to eat a slice or two of corned beef, tinned potatoes was somewhere I had always drawn the line (well, I'd drawn the line before the tinned potatoes) until we went on Scout camp last summer. I was converted, and for the rest of the summer, corned beef hash became one of our regular camping meals, corned beef, tinned potatoes, tinned sweetcorn. Cheap, filling. Serve with tabasco for the adults, brown sauce or ketchup for the kids. Those with harsher tongues amongst you might whisper "Trailer trash", but I say don't knock it till you try it.

I had corned beef hash on the menu from last week but in the general disarray that my week became, it never happened. On the plus side, the tins of potatoes, sweetcorn and corned beef were sitting nicely in the cupboard ready to be used up, and I supplemented with some brussel sprouts that our allotment neighbour picked for us, and two rather sorry looking leeks. 

That's the great thing about this - you can use up anything in it. I've made variations of this with fresh potatoes too, and with bacon instead of corned beef.  Anything goes, really.

Corned Beef Hash

serves 4

1 tablespoon oil
1 red onion, peeled and chopped
2 leeks, sliced and washed
2 handfuls of small brussel sprouts, trimmed
340g tin new potatoes, drained and sliced up
1 tin corned beef, sliced up into chunks
1 small tin sweetcorn, drained

Heat the oil in a large frying pan, then add in the onion and cook over a medium heat for a few minutes. Add in the leeks and then the brussels sprouts and cook for a few minutes till softened.

Tip the veg into a bowl, then put the pan back on the heat with a little more oil if necessary, and add the potatoes and cook over a reasonably high heat to get them a little browned and crunchy. Add the veg back into the pan, along with the corned beef and the sweetcorn and stir till all is hot.

Serve. With tabasco, ketchup or brown sauce to taste.