derryX makes corned beef hash…

Generally, going out to eat can get expensive. On top of that, you really don’t know how they’re cooking your food or what is even in it.

A favorite breakfast of mine is the corned beef hash and two scrambled eggs at Route 7 Diner in Latham, NY. There are a few things that make this a less than optimal regular breakfast experience. The first is proportions. They say it consists of two scrambled eggs; I don’t know how big the chicken they got these eggs from is, but there seems to be much more than 2 eggs. Another is the quality of the corned beef hash. It’s clearly from a can. While I do enjoy canned corned beef hash, you can do better, especially in the capital region.

I’m here to tell you that you can do even better yet. And it’s really easy. Here’s what I did (some preparation at least a day before assembly is required):

I went to Falvo’s Meat Market and asked for half of a raw, pickled corned beef brisket. I was kind of an idiot for this because I failed to realize that this would not yield as much as I expected. Ohh well; next time, I get the whole brisket. I boiled a pot of water, added the brisket and simmered that sucker for 4 hours, as instructed by the gentleman at Falvo’s. After extraction from the water, I allowed it to cool and placed it in a container in the fridge.

Also ahead of time, I diced up some raw sweet potatoes and boiled these in a copious amount of water. I drained these and allowed them to cool then placed them in a container in the fridge.

On the morning that I wanted to eat corned beef hash, I took a vidallia onion and diced about 1/4 of it. I also diced about 4 oz of corned beef and set aside about 4 oz of sweet potatoes.

I melted about 1/2 tbsp of butter into 1/2 tbsp of olive oil and heated the pan to a good medium-high.

I tossed the onions, corned beef, and sweet potatoes into the hot pan and allowed it to cook without agitation for a few minutes.

(Bonus points if you comment with the reason that I use wooden spoons exclusively with my stainless steel pans)

While this was working, I cracked two eggs into a bowl with 1/2 tbsp of milk and a pinch of kosher salt and some cracked pepper.

I whipped these guys up and, in a separate frying pan, I melted a small pat of butter and scrambled them to light firmness.

While all of this was happening, I mixed the hash a couple of times. When that reached the desired crispiness, I placed it on a plate with a well down the center, and added the eggs to the well.

I like lots of pepper on my eggs, so I cracked some more over the top. I enjoyed this dish so much! Plus, I have little containers with the components in the fridge and can toss them in a pan and have this any time!

I did brush over a major point of controversy, though. Corned beef hash is traditionally made with white potatoes. Yea, I know this. My hash uses sweet potatoes. I have a few reasons for this. The most important two reasons are that I prefer sweet potatoes to white potatoes, and it is my recipe. Also important are the fact that sweet potatoes are lower on the glycemic index than white potatoes, and I have a shirt that I need to continue fitting into. You want white potatoes? Use white potatoes; it’s your life.