Cooking 101: Corned Beef Hash

Last Wednesday I attempted to make corned beef hash.  It's one of The Engineers favorite foods, but he usually eats it out of a can on camping trips. (I tried it once, yuck). In an effort to prove homemade is always better than canned, I figured the leftover corned beef from St. Patrick's Day made this the perfect opportunity.

Let me first say, I like to cook. I really enjoy combining flavors, dicing up veggies, and tasting the results.  I dislike cooking for 2 hours and eating in 15 minutes in front of the TV, but we'll work on that when there's a proper table.  One of my resolutions this year was to learn to cook, like really learn.  It's a slow process, which mostly consists of my Pinterest overflowing with recipes.  I would loooove to take a knife skills class. Anywho, back to the corned beef...

Generally I don't follow recipes.  I reference them, but I don't measure or keep time.  (I will never be a baker.)  Although this usually isn't an issue, this time it would have done me well to follow some instructions.  The corned beef hash was edible, tasty even, but not very well seasoned, and looked atrocious.  The potatoes were all wrong. Mushy, not crunchy.  I'd say this meal was a flop, but I will definitely give it another shot next March 19-22ish.

First, I cubed the corned beef and potatoes. My first mistake was chopping them both in to large cubes instead of a smaller chop.  The recipe I read called for yellow onion and green pepper, but I substituted the pepper for scallion.  Mostly because I love scallion and forgot to buy a pepper at Whole Foods.

Next, I boiled the potatoes and promptly made my second mistake of leaving them in too long. No coming back from mushy tots. I then sauteed the yellow onion and 3 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet.  There was so much mushy potatoe that I wound up only using about 3/4 of what I boiled. I added more butter to the overflowing skillet, because hey, everything is better with butter.

Finally, I poured in the cubes of corned beef and fried up two eggs on the side.  When everything was good and hot, not crispy as I'd hoped, I served it up with some spicy mustard.

It's certainly not a pretty meal, not to mention my foodie pics could use some serious technical help. The Engineer assured me it was a fine meal, and encouraged me along the way as I huffed and puffed and practically cried (over chopping the onion, obviously).

That's the best part about cooking for a hungry man.  Even when you ruin his favorite meal, he will lick the plate clean.  Plus, mine does the dishes.