Creamed Corned Beef with Crispy Rye Waffles

Occasionally when I was a kid, my mom would make creamed chipped beef on toast for us.  I absolutely loved it.  After all, what’s not to love? I never understood why it gained the infamous moniker “Sh*t in a Shingle”.  Tasty beef in a creamy sauce sounds good to me. 

I was looking for recipes that I could make to use up the mountain of corned beef I have left over from St. Patrick’s Day.  We had already had corned beef hash and Reuben sandwiches, so what next?  I thought why not Creamed Corned Beef?  The classic recipe calls for dried beef cooked with onions in a white sauce served over toasted white bread.  Since my recipe uses my own home-cured corned beef, just plain white toast wouldn’t cut it.  Rye bread goes perfectly with corned beef but I still wanted to kick it up a notch.  Then it came to me:  Crispy Rye Waffles.  I have got to try this.



Mise en  Place

Creamed Corned Beef

1 cup chopped onion

¼ cup butter
¼ cup flour
½ tsp. salt
2 cups milk
1 ½ cups diced corned beef

Melt butter in a heavy sauce pan and then sauté onions until tender and translucent.  Add the flour and stir to combine and cook for a couple minutes to get rid of the flour-y taste. 

Cooking the flour with the onions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add the salt, and then slowly add the milk, stirring constantly.  Bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring constantly, while the sauce begins to thicken.  Once the sauce has reached your desired thickness, stir in the corned beef.  If the sauce has trouble thickening, stir together a slurry of 1 tablespoon cornstarch and 1 tablespoon water.  Add this to the sauce and it will tighten up very quickly. Keep the sauce warm while you make the waffles.

Creamed Corned Beef

Crispy Rye Waffles

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup rye flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
2 Tbsp. sugar
Generous pinch kosher salt
2 cups milk
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 Tbsp. caraway seeds

Mix together the flours, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl.  Whisk in the milk and oil until thoroughly combined and smooth.  Stir in the caraway seeds.  You can keep the batter in the fridge for an hour or two if you need to.
 

Waffles...yummm

When you are ready to make your waffles, preheat your waffle iron.  When it is hot, brush the hot iron plates with a little vegetable oil.  This will prevent sticking.  (You could use non-stick spray, but that stuff is full of wax and chemicals – yuck.)  For each waffle, pour about ½ to ¾ of a cup onto the waffle iron and close the iron.  Cook the waffle according to the waffle iron manufacturer’s recommendation for crispy waffles.  With my iron, that is about 4 ½ to 5 minutes.  Repeat this process with the remaining batter, being sure to brush the iron plates with oil in between each waffle.  You should end up with six to eight waffles total.

Ladle the hot Creamed Corned Beef over one or two waffles and serve.
 

Creamed Corned Beef on Crispy Rye Waffles

I was thrilled with how this recipe turned out.  The crispy, savory waffle was the perfect bed for the creamy sauce studded with bits of salty, garlicky corned beef.  This will now be a post-St. Paddy’s Day tradition.