Tonight was just one of those nights that was going too good. I guess I should have known…everything was going so well. I got home from work, picked up a few groceries, and prepped my dinner which happened to be a corned beef recipe from Epicurious.com and also got great reviews. I felt good knowing I had most of my ingredients in the house already: fresh onions and red potatoes I had gotten from the farmers market and red peppers I had grown so painstakingly in my own garden. Also had the eggs which I was going to add to the hash. The only thing I had to buy was the corned beef, which was in a can. I was ready! So I chopped my onions and peppers and parboiled the potatoes. I chopped up the beef that was in the can. Mind you this is not the corned beef hash that looks like dog food when you open it. No, I was going to go above and beyond and make it from scratch. So with all that I headed off to my taekwondo class. That was a blast. I was having touble with my red belt form, and was finally getting close to mastering it. I was feeling pretty good. Also happy that tomorrow is Friday. What could go wrong? I started off making the dish in my favorite heavy duty Le Creuset pan. The recipe called for a nonstick pan but I thought a little browning couldn’t hurt a hash that was supposed to be crispy. Everything was going smashing at this point. Put butter and olive oil into the pan and started to saute the onions and red peppers. Then in went the potatoes and they started browning. That is where the trouble began! The pan started to brown at the bottom, not burn by any means, but it was still too early. This actually is a good feature of the pan and why I like it so much, allthough not for this recipe. When you have recipe that calls for a deglaze, these brown bits are like flavor bombs when deglazed with something acidic like wine. In this case though, I did not want that. So I ended up switching to one of my nonstick cheaper pans. I put everything in and cranked up the heat. At that point I turned my back to double task and unloaded the dishwasher. By the time I fnished, the bottom of the veggies were blackening. Discouraged I threw in the corned beef to try to remedy the situation. Maybe the blackness will add some flavor…so I thought. I put garlic, I put pepper, I put salt, but no matter what I could not make that dish taste good. In fact, not only did it really not taste good, it really did not taste like anything! Finally after 10 minutes of stirring I gave up. My hubby came over, smelled it and made a face. I knew the verdict had been reached. I threw in the towel. This was nonedible. I couldn’t even feed this to my dog! Thankfully we had a pizza in the freezer in the case of emergency situations. Husband prepared it while I put my head in my hands stewing over my failure and wondering what went wrong. Joe got me glass of wine to help as well as console me as I thought about it. It was the meat in the can! Of course peppers, potatoes, and onions with garlic are a heavenly combination. The flavorless meat was the culprit. Next time I will use real brisket of corned beef for this recipe and see if that changes things. In the meantime I am going to be wary of any kind of meat in a can for a recipe. My advice is, if you have the time, do not substitute. Always use the real thing. I have posted my cooking disaster below and as always welcome your comments.
Your dinner on canned meat.....any questions?
