Corned Beef Hash with Fried Eggs

Ingredients

• 340g tinned corned beef
• 4 eggs
• 600g cooked potatoes, diced
• 1 red pepper, diced
• sea salt & black pepper, to season
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 25g unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 15g flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• Crusty sourdough toast, to serve
• Dressed leaves, to serve

Method

1. Heat the butter and oil in a large heavy frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion and red pepper with a pinch of salt and cook gently for 8 minutes, until soft, sweet, and just starting to catch gold at the edges — that colour is flavour, so don't rush it.
2. Stir in the crushed garlic and smoked paprika and cook for 30 seconds, just until fragrant. Watch it — burnt garlic turns the whole hash bitter, and bloomed paprika tastes of itself rather than dusty. The pan should smell sweet and smoky now.
3. Tip in the diced potatoes in a single layer and turn the heat up. Press them down with a spatula and leave them alone for 3–4 minutes at a time — if you crowd and stir, they steam; if you spread and wait, they crust. You're after crunchy golden patches, not uniform mush.
4. Break the corned beef into the pan in chunks and work it through the potatoes with the spatula. Let it sit against the hot metal for a minute or two between turns so it flakes and catches in places — about 4–5 minutes total for that mix of crispy edges and tender middles.
5. Splash in the Worcestershire sauce and fold through most of the parsley. Taste now — the corned beef brings salt, but the potatoes will want more. Season with salt and pepper, taste again, adjust. Do it now, not at the table.
6. Meanwhile, heat a separate non-stick pan over medium heat with a little oil or butter. Crack in the eggs, season with salt and pepper, and fry to your liking — 2–3 minutes for sunny-side up with a runny yolk, a touch longer for set. The whites should be crisp at the edges, the yolks still wobbling.
7. Divide the hash between warm plates, perch a fried egg on each, scatter over the reserved parsley, and finish with a generous crack of black pepper so the yolk breaks into the smoky potatoes.