There's no more corny puns with this Corned Beef Hash!

Just a quick FYI before I get to the recipe, this is the Time Travelling Chef from the future! I did make the rest of the World War 2 recipes in the run up to Christmas, but was quite overwhelmed by last minute work and general Christmas stress to update my blog! Not great excuses, but we did finish the week with these recipes. Having had a lovely Christmas and New Year, I'm hoping January will enable me to bounce back and to update my blog as planned. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas a New Year too!

To use up the remainer of my tin of corned beef I went for a classic Corned Beef Hash. In my research for World War Two and the food from the era, I've since learnt that corned beef has been around a lot longer than I initially thought. The 'corned' aspect is from the way the meat is preserved using large grains of salt, otherwise known as 'Corns' and we've been eating corned beef since the Tudor times. I say we, obviously, the lowly tin of corned beef has fallen out of favour and is no longer as widely consumed as it once was.

The partner was not particularly delighted to hear we were going to have yet more corned beef, cabbage and potatoes, but I've taken great delight in using the classic phrase 'There is a war on, you know' to avoid any arguments or dissent. Safe to say it's actually worked quite well, as the only argument the partner has come up with is 'No, there isn't.' 

I often listen to the music of the era when preparing meals and favourite of mine has become 'Please Leave My Butter Alone' the tragic song of a woman who has her butter pinched so often she's written a song to convince people to desist. 

Corned Beef Hash

Ingredients

• 1/2 tin of corned beef 
• 225g cooked, cubed potatoes
• 1/2 a cabbage, shredded
• 1/2 leek, chopped
• 100ml of vegetable water (use the water from cooking the cabbage and potatoes)
• Small amount of lard or margarine

Method

1. Put the shredded cabbage in a little salted water, bring to boil and simmer in a covered pot.
2. Chop up the leek and place in a pan with a little cooking fat and cook until lightly golden, add in the corned beef and potato and continue to saute for a few minutes. Try not to stir too often.
3. Add the vegetable water and let it simmer away.
4. Add the cabbage.
5. Sprinkle a little pepper over the dish.

I again quite liked this meal, even though it seems we're going to repeat potatoes, potatoes, potatoes for every meal. The food was seasoned quite well by the corned beef, as that's already quite salty. But it does seem like this is the era for when Britain became known for brown, bland food. When talking to my mum about it, I reasoned that if you are having a lot of young people growing up eating this food, then it's understandable they would have famillies of their own and serve similar dishes. If you grow up eating fairly bland food, well then you wind up making the food that reminds you of home and your family. It makes complete sense we were eating this food until the 1970s and 80s, because most people hadn't really known anything different during that time. 

I have plans to do a 1970s week, so I've been researching that too, and the amount of dishes that are evidently from other countries or inspired by different cultures just seems mad, when compared to what I'm eating right now! I expect if you asked someone from the 1940s whether they thought in thirty years time they'd be eating duck a l'orange they'd probably think you were barmy!