I think before I came to live on the farm the only time I would have had silverside would have been as a cold cut from the deli. Eating silverside as a roast was just not something I was familiar with doing. The first few times I ate silverside it was made by Neil’s dad, cooked in a pot for a couple of hours with some aromatics. It was delicious and different. Once I understood how to cook a silverside I took over cooking it for the family. Still delicious and different. Then I read about how people where cooking it in their slow cooker and I decided I had to try that too! There was not a single person in the family that thought this was going to turn out ok. But guess what! It did! *relief*

Silverside is a very lean cut and often in Australia you only get it in the form of corned beef, meaning it’s been brined. I like to think of it as beef ham. When people get it home it’s often cooked in a pot of water with some onion, celery, carrot, brown sugar, bay leaves, peppercorns, cloves and some malt vinegar. That’s exactly what I did to ours, only I did mine in the slow cooker.

I like to call my onion studded with cloves my Death Star onion. I don’t know why it reminds me of the Death Star, it just does. We don’t normally eat the vegetables the meat cooks in but I’m sure you could if you wanted. Once I had my vegies sorted I added my meat to the slow cooker as well as the malt vinegar and the rest of the aromatics and filled the slow cooker with water until the silverside was mostly covered.

I left the silverside to cook for 7-8 hours without touching it. It wasn’t until later in the day when I noticed that some of the roast was still out of the water so I flipped over the silverside just to be on the safe side. At the 9 hour mark I pulled the silverside out and rested it under some alfoil and a tea towel for about 20 minutes. I was starving, after about 5 minutes I was demanding Neil carve it so I could have dinner. He was adamant it rest for at least 20 minutes. I did give me a chance to make up my seeded mustard cheese sauce and beans though 😛

It wasn’t until about half way through dinner that everyone confessed that they had no faith in the slow cooker silverside. Everyone. Everyone thought it was going to a fail, a massive fail. Be it too dry, too tough, or just too much fail. No one thought it was going to be good. Thankfully, everyone thought it was the best silverside I’d ever cooked. The meat was so soft and falling apart a little as Neil carved it up and it wasn’t at all dry. This will definitely be how I cook all our silversides from now on.

Our was a 2kg silverside, it fed 4 adults for dinner, 4 adults the next day for lunch in sandwiches, I used some pulled apart and mixed through mash to make mash patties, Neil took some to work for lunch, and I snacked on it a little too when no one was looking. Basically, a 2 kg silverside is a lot of meat and will probably feed you forever.

Slow cooked corned silverside

Feeds at least 8 people.

Ingredients:

2kg corned silverside

1 carrot

1 stick of celery

1 cup of brown sugar

1 cup of malt vinegar

1 onion studded with cloves

A couple of bay leaves

A tablespoon of peppercorns

Water

Method:

• Place everything into the slow cooker with the silverside on top
• Fill the slow cooker with water until the water level is above the silverside
• Turn the slow cooker on low for 8-10 hours
• Check halfway through and turn the silverside over if necessary
• Remove the silverside from the slow cooker, allow it to rest covered in alfoil for at least 20 minutes
• Carve and serve with your favourite sides and some cheese sauce (we like mustard cheese sauce)

***If you want to do this in a pot instead, put everything into the pot and cover with water, let it come to a boil, turn down the heat to a gentle simmer, and simmer for 1.5-2 hours.