Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals #10: Beef Hash
This is our 10th cooking/blogging experiment from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals. Hey, we’re 20% of the way through! We picked this particular recipe because we had the TV episode recorded and because we had several of the ingredients in the pantry already. The hash itself also seemed fairly low-carb and we knew it would freeze well for lunches. Lucky for us, it turned out to be tasty too!

Substitutions and changes: We decided to make a DOUBLE batch of the hash since we had a kilo of mince in the freezer. We couldn’t find any watercress in the shops, so we left that out of the salad. Other than that, no changes at all!

Quick verdict: Such a filling and warming dish! Simple and hearty and perfect for a chilly night. We were both surprised how great the potatoes turned out given the unorthodox “microwave + grill” method of cooking. Elapsed cooking time was 42:55, but we did do a double batch of the hash so that used some extra time. I rated it 9.5, and the Snook rated it 9 (out of 10). Honestly, the salad and beans are a bit extraneous. If I were going to make this one on a work night, I’d just do the hash and potatoes. Read on for photos of the preparation.Pre-start prep: We got out all the necessary ingredients, tools, and cooking vessels, including the food processor. The kitchen was clean (well, as clean as it gets) and everything wiped down and ready to go. We had a frying pan and a pot heating on the stove, and a roasting tray heating under the grill.

First are the ingredients for the potatoes: baking potatoes, rosemary, and sour cream.

Next the hash ingredients: beef mince, thyme, red onion, carrots, celery, rosemary, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, and parsley.

Here are the ingredients for the beans: smoked streaky bacon, tomatoes, butter beans, red wine vinegar, and basil.

Lastly, the salad ingredients: soft round lettuce, avocado, sour cream, lemon, and olive oil.

Our food processor with the slicer disc ready to go. Rather than use the blender for the salad dressing, we decided to try out the mini-bowl on our processor.

The pans are heating up. The frying pan is for the beans and the pot is for the (double recipe of) hash.

I started us off by cooking the mince for the hash. Here’s the kilo of mince (remember, this is double) along with olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme.

Meanwhile, the Snook was cleaning potatoes. Ours were pretty gnarly, so he’s cutting off the weird bits.

The potatoes go into a bowl that’s covered in clingfilm and then put in the microwave for 15+ minutes.

Next Snookums started on the beans. Here he is slicing up the rashers of smoked streaky bacon.

The bacon gets fried in the frying pan with some olive oil.

While the bacon was cooking, he started washing the salad leaves.

I was still busy with the hash. I’m prepping the veg (onion, celery, carrot) for the food processor here.

Man, I love the slicer disc on our food processor. It took less than a minute to make this giant bowl of sliced veg.

The Snook was jumping all over the place managing all the side dishes. Here he is getting the salad dressing ready: avocado, sour cream, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Once the mince was cooked, I added rosemary, garlic, and (A LOT OF) Worcestershire sauce.

The bacon is cooked and smelling nice now.

Tomatoes have been added to the bacon…

…and all that veg has been added to the mince. Yeah, the pot was pretty full.

Here the Snook has added the can of butter beans to the bacon and tomatoes.

Finally the potatoes are cooked! The Snook verified it by piercing them with a knife.

The potatoes were then drizzled with olive oil, salt, pepper, and rosemary.

Then they go into the hot roasting tray and put under the grill.

The hash is cooking down nicely now.

The beans are also cooking down and the liquid is thickening.

The Snook used the food processor to whiz up the “goddess dressing” for the salad.

The salad assembly was pretty simple. Greens go in the bowl, and bits of avocado get added on top.

Here’s the Snook giving the potatoes a turn. They’re looking good!

The final step for the hash is adding chopped parsley and adjusting the seasoning.

The beans are finished with olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and basil.

The potatoes looked really nice when they came out of the oven!

And here’s the finished meal! We topped the potatoes with sour cream and parsley as directed.

Tasting notes: There’s really no way to go wrong with simple stuff like this. The Snook particularly liked the beans, and we both thought the potatoes turned out great. They were moist and cooked perfectly. I thought the hash was great, but the Snook thought it needed some extra sauce or perhaps a fried egg to make it perfect. The salad was simple, and the only real interesting bit there was the dressing. As I said, when I do it again I’ll just make the hash and potatoes. It won’t be for ages though: we have a LOT of hash left over!

Stay tuned next week for another recipe from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals!