Corned Beef Hash and Eggs - March 20, 2011

It was a couple days late, but I made a traditional corned beef brisket and boiled potatoes for dinner to recognize St. Patrick's Day on Friday. Neither of us has Irish heritage, but I'm a sucker for themed meals. I bought the meat pre-corned, but next year I'm going to try doing it myself. The New Best Recipe says it is easy, but I'm not so sure...

Anyway, the real highlight of the St. Patrick's Day meal is actually the leftovers the next day, which we had this morning in the form of homemade corned beef hash and eggs. Yummm. I looked at a few recipes for inspiration first. Most include onions, which I decided to leave out because I know Richie is not a fan. A couple recipes had you start with bacon, which I also decided to omit in order to make the dish just a bit less rich, and since I was skipping the onions I didn't really need any fat to start with.

Instead I started with a minced garlic clove and pinch of dried thyme leaves sauteed with a dash of olive oil, then added the chopped corned beef and potatoes to the skillet. Cooked and tossed everything together, and then the ultimate kicker... I poured about half a cup of cream and a dash of hot sauce over the top. Despite leaving out the bacon, this was NOT a "light" breakfast!

I let everything sit in the pan over medium heat undisturbed for about 5 minutes, then started turning it so the top pieces got browned too. After about 10-12 minutes, I made a little divot in one half and cracked an egg into it (Richie only likes scrambled eggs, so I cooked his separately), turned the heat down to low, and covered until the egg was set. Unfortunately, I let it cook a bit too long and my egg was firmer than I would like but it was still delicious!