Its getting to the chilly end of the year, and I’m craving an excellent corned silverside (with cabbage, mashed potatoes and a mustard bechamel of course!).
Which supermarket makes the best? Recommendations please!!!
Woolworths is okay…but I also massage the sealed bag to check that there is any sinew or tough bits. This reduces the chance of getting one with chewy bits.
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Should have also said usually try and get the low salt one…and usually pressure cook it with onion, garlic and 1-2 cloves. Served with mash potato, carrots and beans/peas and a garlic/pepper/mustard while sauce.
A few years ago, a butcher friend suggested we bake it…which we do from time to time…turn it into a roast. It tends to work okay, but is a little saltier (and not as moist) as cooking water hasn’t diluted some of the salts. We usually have baked veges when it is roasted…potaties, onion, beetroot and carrots, with steamed peas/beans/broccoli/brussel sprouts.
I agree, typically CB is silverside which has noticeable fibres that need longer moister cooking to soften. Roasting tougher cuts doesn’t make sense to me, especially if you eat your roast red meat rare. I change the water halfway to boil out more salt and add some aromatics like cloves, peppercorns and bay leaves. Particularly if it’s silverside it needs to be sliced across the grain of the main muscle fibres when served.
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We used to buy the large Coles corned beef which was around 2.5 kg but in the past few years we have been buying corned beef from our local Supa IGA which is usually excellent.
I am sure that I read somewhere some years ago that the amount of salt used in pickling corned beef had been reduced and both my wife’s late mother and we were bitterely disappointed with Woolworths reduced salt corned beef.
We always buy non salt reduced corn beef and add a generous amount of salt to the pot to compensate for the reduced salt in the standard corned beef.
Our local Supa IGA has IGA branded corned beef as well as other labels, subject to supply, and always at competitive prices.
We bought two packs a few weeks ago and the first was delicious, whilst the second awaits its fate in the fridge.
An added bonus of shopping at our local Supa IGA is that they are the only local supermarket who has continued to stock Leggos Chunky Pickles which my wife insists on having with it, whilst Coles and Woollies did it on and off until it obviously become just another product, and those consumers, that they did not care about.
We cook it in our Tefal 8L pressure cooker for around 40 to 60 minutes, and when done, we remove it to a plate and add the shredded cabbage and baby potatoes to the pot and boil them.
Meanwhile, we place the carrots we have peeled and sliced into strips in a dish with a little amount ot water, covered with cling film, in the microwave and steam until soft, drain and add some butter and honey.
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Ours comes from the local butcher. Preferably a cut from the H-bone.
Usually it is sealed in a cook in the bag option. It relies on the butcher to manage the salt content accordingly. The pressure is on to make a really great sauce.
Not traditional, but easier on the environment if you live in an apartment. The cooking water remains salt and fat free.
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I bought a piece of that from a local “discount” butcher after asking one of the butchers which piece I should buy from the display.
He picked up a piece and claimed it should be really good as it was a H piece.
The toughest piece of corned beef we have ever eaten. Absolute rubbish.
I sent them an email on 01.06.2016 but never received the courtsey of a reply.
"Hi,
I bought a piece of corned silverside from your shop on 31.05.2016.
I asked a butcher who was placing stock in the displays if the piece I had selected was a good choice.
He said that other pieces were better and showed me several which he said were cut near the rump.
The recommended piece was almost 2.5 kg and I paid $19.42.
I cooked it yesterday in our stove top pressure cooker. After 60 minutes it was still tough. I cooked it for another
30 minutes and we finally ate some of it for dinner. We tried to eat some of the leftovers in sandwiches for lunch
today but it was so tough that it was inedible. I cooked the leftover piece again today in the pressure cooker for
another 30 minutes and we managed to eat some of it for dinner tonight. We put the rest of it in the wheelie bin
for the garbage collection tomorrow. The grizzle in the piece was like leather. I assume it came from some old
Braham cross animal.
It was the worst piece of corned beef that my wife or I have ever experienced. We have previously purchased
corned beef from your shop when it was not on special and it was always good. I had noted that a lot of the pieces
on special had yellow fat which seemed to indicate that it was from old animals.
When you had whole and half Porterhouse on special the other week, I called to buy one but noted that the meat
very thin, the fat was very thick, and the fat on many pieces was yellow in stark contrast to the sliced Porterhouse
which had wide meat, thin fat and appeared to be top quality.
I am under the impression that your beef specials are for low quality meat and I am extremely disappointed. At least
when I buy meat at Woolworths or Coles the quality is assured and it comes with an unconditional guarantee.
Most disappointed,"
Needless to say, I never shopped there again which was no problem as our local Supa IGA has better and cheaper premium meat and great specials, in comparison to their dodgy specials such as whole porterhouse with the meat around the same thickness as the fat.
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IGA branded - Thomas Farms - very tender, less fat and (although not labelled as such) low salt. I recently bought one from a local butcher - very tender with little excess fat. I remove them from the bag and do a long slow cook (about 3 hours) in a large stew pot with onion, potato, cabbage, sweet potato, dried snake beans (the seeds not the pods) and anything else in the veg patch.
Some I had bought in supermarkets were overly salty, to the point where we couldn’t eat the stewed vegetables for the salt. The IGA ones were bought, not at IGA, but at an independent shop who seem to have bought a “job lot” nearing use-by. We usually buy OK stuff from our local butcher, un-bagged with lots of fat which they will trim off for us. They are very good like that, boning, trimming, slicing to order free of charge.
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