Because there's a recession on, I went for cheap and cheerful: corned beef hash, as described in How to Boil an Egg – the most straightforward no-nonsense cookery book ever and a staple of any kitchen, surely! It really is simple: par-boil diced potato, then throw in a pan with chopped onion and diced corned beef. Fry for fifteen or so minutes with a beaten egg, ketchup, tabasco, worcestershire sauce, seasoning etc. until ready to eat. In my case, serve with baked beans, but I find that if you're just eating it on its own (like I did with the leftovers next day for lunch) it needs a good splurge of ketchup when served, to lubricate and tastify.

I found that the corned beef disintegrates from the carefully chopped cubes almost instantaneously. Even my most careful and delicate pushing it around the frying pan resulted in complete disintegration within mere seconds. I'm sure I remember corned beef hash from my childhood having nicely seared cubes of meat, so I don't know what I did wrong. I can only imagine that I'm remembering wrongly, or I need to buy better ingredients. So I blame Sainsburys in this case.