The first time I ever had corned beef hash I was a kid and we had it for dinner. Despite the fact that I thought it looked gross, I absolutely loved it. The saltiness of the corned beef against the delicious fried potatoes was just delicious. While I would’ve taken it at any time of day, I absolutely love this for breakfast, especially on the weekends.
Topping this classic breakfast with a runny egg turns it into a complete meal and turns something that’s quite basic into a beautiful dish. If you want to take it a step further, it’s made even more perfect with a slice or two of buttered toast on the side to soak up the delicious, runny egg yolk.
For this recipe I love to use a big, beautiful pan that will seamlessly transfer from the burner to the table with no fuss. It is after all a breakfast dish, so it needs to be as easy as possible when you’re just awake, craving coffee and hungover sleepy. That said, if you don’t have a big frying pan you’d like to use for serving, don’t let that stop you from making this dish. You can fry the eggs in one pan and the potatoes & corned beef in another and assemble it all in a nice serving dish or plate it up before heading to the table.
When it comes to ingredients, I really must insist that you go for the corned beef in a tin rather than something fresh. The crumbly texture of tinned corned beef is perfect for this recipe and it’s how I remember this childhood favourite. Furthermore, you can keep tinned corned beef on hand in the cupboard for spontaneous breakfasts and the tins are really fun to open with the twisty key.
With the addition of toast, this recipe will absolutely stretch to feed 4 people, but if you wake up hungry and want a hearty breakfast for two, it’s great for that as well. Let’s get started!
Serves 2 to 4
Ingredients
- 2 large potatoes, chopped into bite sized cubes with skin on
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more if needed
- 4 eggs
- 340g tin of corned beef
- Leaves from a few stems of fresh flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
- Salt & pepper
Method
- Put a large pot of water on the boil with a little salt and cook the potatoes until they are soft. The timing will depend on how small you chop them – the smaller the potato cubes, the faster they’re going to cook. Once soft, strain and leave to dry on a plate lined with paper towels.
- Heat the olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat and fry the eggs until starting to set a bit on top. Flip and fry for only about 30 seconds more and remove from the pan to a plate, keeping as much of the oil in the pan as possible. You should have eggs with completely set whites and runny yokes. You might need to do the eggs one or two at a time.
- In the same frying pan still on medium-high heat, add the potatoes and corned beef to the remaining oil. If needed, add a bit more oil. Fry the corned beef and potatoes for about 8 to 10 minutes until nice & crispy, smushing the potatoes a bit with a wooden spoon to help them crisp up on the rough edges.
- Season to taste with salt & pepper before adding the eggs on top. Sprinkle a little more pepper on the eggs and scatter some chopped parsley across the top of the whole dish before serving.