Cowboy Corned Beef 'n' Beans Pie!

Princes have asked me to come up with some recipes using corned beef as it's more frequently used for sandwiches. Obviously, the standard recipe is corned beef hash but as they already have that recipe on their site, I thought I'd think of something else and came up with a pie. If you look about, a lot of people call a potato topped pie a hash too but to me, a "proper" hash sees all the chopped ingredients (hash comes from the French "hacher" to chop) all fried together, and usually topped with some kind of egg.

The other thing that corned beef goes really well with baked beans. I thought I would combine all three elements here to make an easy, but yummy winter family dish which is pretty cheap to make too.

Cowboy Corned Beef 'n' Beans Pie
Serves 6

Ingredients

1kg white potatoes (starchy rather than waxy), peeled and cut into large chunks
1 tbsp oil
1 medium onion, chopped
340g can corned beef, cut into 1-2cm cubes
1 tbsp dijon mustard (or whichever mustard you prefer)
1 tbsp dark muscovado sugar or molasses
1 tbsp tomato ketchup or tomato puree
420g tin baked beans
400g tin chopped tomatoes
50g grated cheddar (optional)

1. Place the potato chunks into a large saucepan, cover with cold water, cover and bring to the boil, then simmer until they are soft enough to mash.

2. In a medium pan or frying pan, heat the oil over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook for around 5 minutes until softened and colouring at the edges. Add the corned beef, turn up the heat and cook for a further couple of minutes. Try not to stir and turn the beef too much as you want to try and get a colour to the beef. Add the mustard, sugar, and tomato ketchup or puree and give everything a quick stir, then add the beans and the tomatoes. Have a good scrape around the pan so that anything that has stuck to the bottom lifts off and adds flavour to the mix. Season to taste. Pour into a large ovenproof dish - I tend to use a deep lasagne dish.

3. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. When the potatoes are done, drain the potatoes and mash them with whatever you choose to mash with - I used a knob of butter and enough semi-skimmed milk to stop the mash being too stiff but at the same time, not too runny.  Top the corned beef mixture with the mash, ensuring that it is well covered.

4. Place in the oven and cook for about 30 mins, until the top goes slightly brown. If you are using cheese, scatter it over halfway through cooking and if you need to brown the cheddar, finish off for a couple of minutes under a hot grill. Serve - a good dash of ketchup, brown sauce or even barbecue sauce goes well with it. (Actually, if you want the whole pie to have more of a barbecue flavour, add some to the mixture in place of the ketchup in step 2.)

See my other post for my corned beef and lentil soup!

(Princes sent me 6 tins of corned beef and an apron so that I can create some recipes using their products. I have not been paid further for writing this post.)