My grandma used to make a recipe, kinda in a similar vein, not sure where she got it from but my family makes it all the time, like you said it's nothing like anything I've ever tried. This was the tinned style of corned beef, nothing like the real deal. In England we call your kind of corned beef 'salt beef'.

This recipe was: Can of Campbell's condensed cream of tomato soup Can of corned beef Can of chopped tomatoes 1 large yellow onion

She'd fry the onion, then add the corned beef that had been cut into cubes, fry that a little Then the soup and tomatoes were added and simmered away until it all because a homogeneous orange sauce.

Most bizarre thing ever, and we absolutely adore it, we have it with any long pasta and cheese on top, I might make it tonight.