This recipe for corned beef mash pie is taken from the wonderful cookery book put together by Hendreds Environment Group (HEG) Community Larder during Food Waste Action Week 2024.
The complete digital book of recipes will be available via the HEG Community Larder website – coming soon!
Follow the larder on Facebook and Instagram to find out when it lands. You’ll also find lots more recipe inspiration to make use of pantry staples or garden gluts.
Tins of corned beef are often available from community larders – this is a really simple recipe to make use of them. Like me, you might have been wondering what corned beef is and where the name comes from – after all it doesn’t contain corn. Corned beef is beef (usually brisket) preserved with salt using a process called ‘curing’. The large grains of salt used were known as ‘corns‘ in Old English.
This dish also uses quite a few fresh potatoes, which are one of the three most commonly wasted foods in UK homes. Alternatively, you could use leftover, frozen or even powdered mashed potato.
This is the perfect recipe to experiment with substituting ingredients. If you are short of potatoes, throw in any other starchy root vegetable. Sweet potato, swede, turnip and even carrots or parsnips can all be mashed – I like to use a combination. I’ve even seen a recipe that used half potato, half cauliflower.
If you run out of frozen peas, try adding frozen or tinned carrots or sweetcorn. This might divide opinion, but I actually love adding a tin of baked beans to these kinds of meat (or substitute) and mash dishes. Give it a try – let me know what you think.
If you only have one tin of corned beef or want to reduce the fat and salt content, swap out half the beef for fresh or tinned mushrooms. Pre-cooked or canned lentils would also be a good choice as they are high in protein and fibre, but low in fat.
Of course, this isn’t one for anyone following a plant-based diet, although you could use a meat substitute or a mix of pulses and finely chopped or grated to veg to make a similar dish.
Preparation time: 25 minutes Cooking time: 35 minutes Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 2 tins of corned beef
- 6 large potatoes and a knob of butter or splash of milk
- cup of frozen peas
- cup of grated cheese
- 300ml gravy
Method
- Chop and boil the potatoes in salted water – leave the peel on if possible
- Empty the corned beef into an ovenproof dish and slice into small pieces
- Once soft, drain and mash the potatoes with butter and/or milk and season
- Add the frozen peas to the corned beef
- Make 300ml of thick gravy and add to the dish of beef and peas
- Add the mash on top of the beef mixture, use a fork to make some peaks
- Bake in a hot oven (180°C) for 20 minutes. Add the cheese and bake for another 10-15 minutes until golden brown and delicious!
- Serve with extra seasonal veg and lashings of gravy
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