Corned Beef Hash

The kitchen is cold when you come in. Coat still on, bags on the floor, the heating only just clicking on. There's a tin of corned beef in the cupboard. There are always potatoes. An onion. A couple of eggs. This is that kind of evening.

Corned beef hash isn't a recipe you plan. It's a recipe you fall back on, the meal that waits patiently in the store cupboard for the day you haven't been to the market, haven't got a plan, and need something hot on a plate in under an hour. It got Britain through rationing for a reason. Not because it was glamorous, but because it was good, and filling, and it made a tin of beef and a few potatoes feel like a proper supper.

The secret, if there is one, is the crust. You press the hash flat in the pan and then you leave it. No stirring. No checking. You let the bottom go golden and crisp, then turn it and do the same again. The contrast between the crunchy, caramelised edges and the soft, savoury middle is the whole thing. That, and the fried egg on top with its yolk still trembling. When you cut into it and the yolk runs down through the hash, soaking into the crispy bits, that's the moment. I wrote it down in the notebook years ago: corned beef hash, Tuesday, rain, perfect.

We're only making dinner. But sometimes dinner is exactly enough.