Corned Silverside/Beef Learner - What do you do??

Hi Ladies!

So I have never done a corned beef/silverside before, I'm more of a roast kind of girl when it comes to my meats, so have made lots of them, but DH has requested this as it's a meal he enjoyed greatly during his childhood and it sounds very yummy so I am happy to oblige!

Tonight is the night :) My 1.3kg Silverside is out and defrosted, good to go... I have a recipe here that says to soak the beef in cold water for an hour before simmering in the pot with my cloves, onion, perppercorns & bay leaves for 1.5hours - This sounds great but other recipes I have read don't say anything about soaking the beef for an hour, what is the difference between soaking and not soaking it?? Do you soak yours?? I am wondering if there are other yummy options also or is Corned Beef generally always cooked the same way?? How do you do yours? I am planning on serving mine with carrots, potatoes, cabbage & homemade white sauce. What do you serve yours with?

Would greatly appreciate your input/advice! I have never eaten let alone cooked corned beef and I want it to turn out marvellously for my well deserving DH! :D

Alicia xx

i have never heard of soaking it, so dunno about that. i find that if you follow the instructions on the bag it doesnt get cooked enough so what i do is put it in for the recommended time (from memory 30-40 mins per 500g) but then continue to cook it for a further 3-4 hours. you put a knife in it and if it is soft it is cooked, if its hard it is not.

you can leave it in the bag or take it out, i take it out and add 3/4 cup malt vinegar and a tablespoon of brown sugar to the wter. i also drop a whole onion in there to coook with it. i dont bother with the cloves. i like to cook the potatoes right at the end in the same pot it gets a nice flavour in it, but DH doesnt like the flavour so i do his in a seperate pot of water, its up to personal preference.

usually have it with cabbage and carrot, and white sauce. DH bangs on about his mums onion sauce but i dont know how to make it. LOL

hope that helps!

Don't soak ours. I assume it might be done to help remove some of the salt. I add malt vinegar, peppercorns, cloves, brown sugar and bay leaves. Cook it longer than what it says, make sure it is a nice simmer, not a rapid boil. I prefer it to be ready before I prepare the rest of the veg. I just turn it off and let it sit in the warm water, for some reason it comes out better that way.

I serve with mash potato, homemade parsley sauce, bacon and cabbage plus other seasonal veg.

Thankyou so much ladies! Yes I forgot to add the brown sugar in my post above, my recipe calls for this also... I have done some research and found that yes the soaking is to remove some of the salt - Is this really neccessary?? Is this Beef rather salty?? Too salty?? I might not soak it and see how I go as it's only this particular recipe that is telling me to soak it....

Thankyou for your advice Hollo! I will def try cooking it for a while longer than it says, I will do the knife test to be sure and will do the potatoes in the water for the extra flavour, that sounds like a great idea! Thankyou!

Ooooo Astrid, serving bacon with it sounds delicious!! I will do come cabbage, potatoes, carrots, capsicum and broccoli with the white sauce also :) My recipe says to rest the meat wrapped in foil once it is cooked, I am hoping this works like other meats and makes the meat even more tender but will also let it rest in the water for a little as well , Thanks for the tip!!

Thankyou so much ladies!! Will go pop it on now and let you know how I go - Hopefully it's a winner with DH :D

how'd ya go? did you know you can also do a corned lamb (i have only ever seen it from woolies) and you can get pickled pork which you cook in the same way. corned beef is definately the best though. ;-)

If you have a slow cooker, silverside cooks beautiful in it.

I do mine in the pressure cooker - usually perfect after 45 minutes! Sooooo yummy! And we throw whole carrots (peeled), and onion halves in too, for the whole time it is cooking, and they turn out soooooooo nice and soft and yummy!

Then we serve it with a seeded mustard white sauce, and then put the jar of seeded mustard on the table too.

Drool......feel like having this for dinner now!

Oooo Ali, the the seeded mustard white sauce I will definitely do next time... We love our seeded mustard in this house!!

Hollo, Not so keen on lamb myself, will stick to the beef if that's what you think is the best out of the "corned" meats? We are big roast Pork fans so I doubt we'd get to try the Pickled Pork over a Roast Pork haha.. Thankyou so much for all of your tips!!

Oh Csab I can't wait to get a slow cooker!! Just need to do some research and figure out which one is best... How long do you do your silverside in the sc for?

It tunred out really well! I ended up taking all the cloves out after about 2 hours, I just couldn't stand the smell anymore, it was making me sick! No a cloves fan at all... So I threw in some Rosemary instead, don't think either of them truly affected the taste of the meat anyway :) I put a little garlic & pepper into my white sauce just for something a little more 'spesh' and did roast potatoes, roast carrots, steamed broccoli, cauliflower & cabbage... DH LOVED it! I really don't think soaking it would have made too much of a difference, I didn't and the meat ws definitely not too salty so I won't soak it again next time either...

Thankyou so much for all your advice ladies! Definitely turned out to be a success :D

You can get salt reduced if salt is a concern. Grabbed one accidentally once and DH complained that something was missing, so wont be making that mistake again.

I have never soaked ours either. Corned beef is my comfort food. I do white vinegar though, with brown sugar and bay leaves.

Mine usually simmers for around 2 hours or so on stove top. I let it come to a boil first then drop back to a simmer. Andrew likes white parsely sauce with his, but now we have a child with milk product intolerances he can't have it, otherwise Ashton wants it too.

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If you have a slow cooker, silverside cooks beautiful in it.

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...totally agree.

Can of pineapple juice in slow cooker, silverside, your ready to go....delic !!!

i boil mine with vinegar, sugar, mustard powder and a whole onion
serve it with mash spuds and pumpkin, cabbage with bacon and home made plum sauce ...drool....

With the slow cooker, normally put it on around 9am have it on high till it gets hot then put on low until around 5pm-6pm. So tender and yum. Had it on Monday night... mmmmm. I normally cook the potatoes with the silverside too, gives a beautiful flavour to them.