Corned beef hot pot and Corned beef pie

A simple dish of mellow flavours and the salty tang of corned beef and sweetness of carrots. Made for me on many occasions, by many relatives, as a pie-filling for parties, birthdays and many other occasions served for tea and relished by all who taste it. A true northern dish which people don’t seem to understand outside of Tyneside, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Ireland. The Corned beef can come form a tin but I will provide you with a recipe, which will produce a cured or corned beef that once you taste you will wonder what is in the little oddly shaped finger cuttings tins! The name Corned beef comes from the type of salt which was originally used to cure the meat, the grains where large and looked like grains of corn thus the name.

For tea for four or for a pie filling for the same number

1 tin corned beef in big cubes

Four large potatoes peeled and roughly chopped

1 onion peeled and diced

2 carrots peeled and diced

Very little salt and freshly ground black pepper

Water

Place the vegetable in a pan and just cover with water add a little salt pepper, simmer till the potatoes are cooked drain off most of the water (all of it if it is to go in a pie) and add the corned beef, now mash it all together with a wooden spoon gently and serve as hot pot with ketchup or brown sauce. Simple, satisfying and very economical.

To make a pie

Make the hot pot drain off all the liquid before you add the corned beef. Line metal pie plate or two depending on size with a simple pastry of:-

8oz plain flour

2oz butter

2oz lard

2 tbls very cold water

1tsp salt

Next place the filling in the lined pie dishes and cover with the remaining pastry, brush with beaten egg. Bake in an oven at 180oc for 20 minutes until the pasty is golden and crisp. Even better eaten cold the next day with Branston pickle and cheap lemonade.