Corned Beef Hash with Poached Eggs

I didn't invent this Remix idea, you know.  Hash is the delicious epitome of a Remix and has been around forever.  The basic recipe is 1 part chopped leftover meat plus 1 part chopped cooked potatoes, fry, and serve.  You can dress it up in any number of ways, but it's great at its simplest.  I looked around at a bunch of recipes and it's always gussied up in some way or another, but I kept it simple as you'll see below.  For my beet loving readers, you know who you are, I learned in my hash research that if you substitute half the potatoes with cooked beets it's called "Red Flannel Hash."  I've had this at one of my favorite SF brunch places, Just For You Cafe, and it's super tasty.

I used Yukon Gold potatoes, carrots, and onions because those were the leftover veggies from my slow-cooked corned beef meal.  No need to pick through for just potatoes.  And, I corrupted the classic ratio and used about 1 part corned beef to two parts potatoes, etc., because those were the proportions of what I had left.  What can I say?  I couldn't get Jeremy to stop eating the corned beef the first time around.

There's no reason to limit yourself to corned beef.  Roast beef is another classic, but you can use sausage or bacon and make a pretty fantastic hash.  Add some cheese and peas and you have a lovely British breakfast or late night snack a la my idol, Nigella Lawson.  LOVE her.

Finally, a tip: don't go crazy when you're cutting up the meat; leave it in big chunks.  I can't tell you how many times I've had hash at a restaurant and the meat is so finely chopped it's absolutely unidentifiable.  Maybe they're calling it "corned beef" hash but I'm certain it's Spam hash, which wouldn't be so bad if I knew in advance.  That little trick is the ONLY reason anyone would mince the meat.  I think I've made my point.

My all-time favorite restaurant hash is at my favorite diner, Breakfast at Tiffany's in the Portola neighborhood of SF.  I interrogated the waitress as politely as I could to determine (a) has it been ruined by bell peppers ("Definitely not!") and (b) is the meat in tiny bits ("Oh no.  It's in big chunks.").  She did not let me down.  You couldn't even get potato and corned beef in your mouth at the same time--their rough chop resulted in mouthful-size pieces of meat.  Yeah, I know what I said; please resist the urge to joke about a mouthful of meat.  :P

Corned Beef Hash

serves 2

   Half of a small onion, minced

   2 tablespoons butter

   2 cups roughly chopped corned beef

   4 cups roughly chopped cooked, cold waxy potatoes

   2 tablespoons liquid from cooking the corned beef, or stock

   1 tablespoon of your favorite hot sauce--mine is Crystal's, which is pretty mild, so beware if you like something hotter

   Big pinch of salt

1.  Fry the onions in the butter over medium heat, just until they start to brown on the edges.

2.  While the onions fry, stir the beef, potatoes, juice/stock, hot sauce, and salt together.

3.  Add the meat/potato mixture the frying pan and stir to incorporate the onions.  Then mash it down and don't touch it for 10 minutes.  You'll be able to smell when 10 minutes have passed and it's nicely browned--it smells like delicious.

4.  Flip it all over however you're comfortable doing it.  I'm sure Jeremy would flip the whole thing in the air and stick it, but I don't have the chutzpah to do it, so I just use a flipper and turn it in about 4 sections.  Then leave it alone for another five minutes or so, or until it smells so good you just can't stand it.

5.  Serve with eggs any style.  My favorite is poached, so I'll show you how to do that next.

Eggs, Poached Soft
serves however many eggs you make
   1 of the freshest eggs you can find for each person
   water
   1 splash of vinegar, any kind
   Big pinch of salt

1.  Fill a medium saucepan or a deep skillet with just enough water to cover eggs, roughly the width of an egg in shell, or about two knuckles deep if you stick your finger in.  Add the vinegar and salt and bring to a boil.

2.  When the water has reached the boil, reduce the temperature enough so that the bubbling is reduced to a few bubbles running up the sides of the pan.  You can hold it here for a bit so you can time the eggs to be done with the hash--put them in a minute after you turn the hash over--but don't keep it here for too long or you'll lose water and have to add more.  I brought it to the limit.  You can't really see in the photos, but the eggs were just BARELY submerged.  Wow, all that just for turning down the heat.

3.  Crack the eggs into individual ramekins.  Don't think you can just crack them straight into the pot and skip this!  If you go with the ramekin you can dump the eggs in almost simultaneously, rather than having 30 seconds in between, and you avoid uselessly poaching a broken yoke if you accidently stick your finger through when you're cracking them.

4.  Gently tip the eggs into the water.  Gently dip whatever utensil with which you're most dexterous in the kitchen (I use a wooden spoon), other than a knife or fork, into the water and gently scoop the white over the yolk.  Gently is the operative word here.  You don't want to disturb the water and spread out the yolk.  But you also have to do this quickly because the whites start to set immediately.  Don't worry, you can do it.

5.  After a few minutes, use a slotted spoon to remove the eggs.  If you're not serving them immediately, you can hold them for about 30 minutes in a bowl of warm water.


Yes, this is an annoyingly detailed instruction for two eggs, but poaching isn't as intimidating as people often think if you pay attention to the details.  Poaching does not work for grocery store-bought eggs.  Sorry.  Just don't bother.  I'm going to be boastful and tell you that I have two lovely hens in the backyard and they each lay an egg about every 26 hours.  I collect them each day, thanking them for their considerable effort and give them each a little scratch between the wings.  It's super easy to keep hens and very rewarding; I highly recommend it.  If you are not lucky enough to have your own chickens, only plan on poaching eggs if you get your eggs from the farmer's market.  No promises, but they are bound to be fresher than the grocery store eggs that can be up to 2 months old when they arrive at the store, and the expiration date is 30 days from "packaging," so you could be eating a 3-month old egg.  It's not BAD, you can certainly eat eggs older than that, but the structural integrity of the egg breaks down as it ages and that's why you get wispy, trailing egg whites and a naked yolk when you poach a store-bought egg.  End diatribe.

Just to point out that I'm not totally prejudiced against store-bought eggs, I will tell you that the older the egg is, the better it is for hard boiling.  It's quite hard to peel a hard-boiled fresh egg because the membrane has not separated from the shell.  You end up with a gouged up surface.  No deviled eggs or sho-yu tamago (soy sauce eggs) for me.  Plus I can't do this.