Thursday 12 January 2012

Corned Beef Hash Challenge - Part 2 of 12 - Brian's Belly

With a website name like “Brian‘s Belly“ how can I not include their recipe? This website is not for the faint-hearted! It’s a shamelessly blokey cooking site, with added booze. Then a bit more booze. And it’s fab for it.

Track Record?
Scrambled Egg - not entered.
Welsh Rarebit - not entered.
Poached Egg - not entered.

Did We Get Permission?
When I mentioned that I‘d be trying their recipe as part of the challenge, Brian‘s Belly replied “Sounds good! I usually add some diced jalepeno ever since I had them that way at a Waffle House... but WH makes 'em too mushy... I like them crispy. Dave”.

Website Version

No photo on the website, sorry.

You can find this recipe here : http://www.briansbelly.com/belly-recipes/corned-beef-hash-18/


Ease & Effort:
The recipe assumes you‘re using leftovers, including leftover corned beef - leftover from what, last night‘s corned beef hash? I used ingredients from fresh, so I hope that didn‘t clash completely with the Brian‘s Belly ethos. It’s simplicity in itself, to a point - after all, all you do is chuck everything in the pan until it’s hot. Now THAT was more the kind of preparation I was expecting from the CBH Challenge. And although I said that “diced” would mean “1cm cubes”, in this recipe “diced” is expanded as “As small as you can get them“. Well, I “could” have spent a very long time slicing and re-slicing until the potato and onion were virtually puree, but I stopped at about 2/3mm chunks. Quick and easy! I tried to find the mid-point between “nice and hot” and “brown”. Score 4.

Presentation:
It certainly looked a LOT more like my stereotype, never-seen-it image than James Martin‘s. It looked like corned beef mixed up with potato and onion! That’s probably a good look for this recipe. Score 3.5.

Taste:
This was delicious, and I polished it off in one go. This is definitely how I imagined the CBH to taste, with the addition of Brian’s Belly’s Tabasco sauce - “one teaspoon if you’re a baby, more if you’re a man”. So I dropped in two spoons (I’m male, I can prove it) and that made this taste wonderfully spicy. It certainly knocked spots off the first dish. Score 4.

My Version




Scores On The Doors
Brian’s Belly - 11.5
James Martin “A” - 8.5

Running Order:
3 - Netmums
4 - Mamma Cherri
5 - Get Stuffed
6 - Aga Links
7 - Delia Smith
8 - BBC Radio Norfolk’s Wally Webb
9 - James Martin B
10 - Student Recipes
11 - Bob Jude
12 - Crazy Squirrel

1 comment:

Manda said...

Now that looks like Corned Beef Hash - I am going to try that one.!