Last week, I cooked corned beef silverside in the slow cooker. It’s provided me with more meals than I expected. Tonight, I cooked a corned beef hash.[i]
Recipe
🥔🐂 Ingredients
Two tablespoons of butter
One small potato
One small finely chopped onion.
One small green capsicum
Two slices of corned beef
Half a teaspoon of freshly cracked black pepper.
Optional — one fried egg.
🔪🥘 Instructions
Prepare the potato.
Cut the potato into six pieces and par-boil for five minutes.
Tinned corned beef is convenient. This meal tasted better than tinned corned beef. Tinned corned beef has a lot of salt; making it from scratch allowed me to titrate the salt to my preferred taste.
The potato wasn’t burnt. I seared it on a hot barbecue grill. The potato was delightfully crispy and pillowy soft inside, like good chips should be.
Questions
Do you like corned beef hash?
How would you use leftover corned beef?
What variations would you recommend?
🥮Sweet treats
I had a craving for some pastries. I enjoyed a pavlova roulade, passionfruit fudge vanilla slice, and salted caramel Berliner.
[i] A note about the images used in this post. The featured image and a couple of other images were generated with Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT. I’m conscious that there are some bloggers and readers who oppose the use of large language models for generating content. I’m comfortable with using large language models to help with content on YummyLummy.com
[i] Corned beef hash is a hearty, savoury dish made by combining chopped or shredded corned beef with diced potatoes and onions, then frying the mixture until it’s golden and crispy. It’s a classic comfort food with roots in frugal cooking—originally designed to use up leftovers, especially from a corned beef dinner.
In the old days (when I was fat[i]), I would cook corned[ii] beef[iii] with vegetables, mustard, garlic, onions, and additives like Worcestershire sauce. I’d eat it with a white sauce made with refined (read ultra-processed) white flour. I usually have boiled potatoes or potato mash with corned beef and white sauce.
More recently, if I want corned beef, I buy it in a can[iv] and make a corned beef hash (sans spuds[v] and onions). A lot of people give me a condescending attitude when I mention my consumption of canned corned beef. Their scorn and derision humour me.
This version is simple and is a low-carbohydrate, minimalist version of corned beef. Apart from the fat sandwich of course. 😉
Microsoft Copilot generated image of me with a plate of corned beef, white sauce, and potato mash.
Unwrap the meat and wash it under running tap water to remove the brine and sugar.
Place the beef into the cooking vessel.
Add a cup of water.
Slowly cook on low heat for eight hours.
Remove the meat from the slow cooker.
Pass the cooking liquor[vii] through a sieve and refrigerate the broth.
With gloved hands, gently dissect the fat from the flesh using fingers to separate the layer of fat according to the fascial plane.
The fat layer makes for a fantastic sandwich on lavishly buttered white sourdough bread[viii]. There’s nothing like the sensation of the beef fat dripping down your hands and forearms as you slowly take bites from the sandwich and masticate the unctuous beef fat. The only reaction you can have is to smile.
Place the beef into a container and seal it. Refrigerate the meat.
Cut the cold meat into lunch-sized portions.
Dice a portion of cold corned beef and place the diced meat in a frypan.
Add beef broth or water to the frypan and bring it to a simmer until the meat fibres start to separate and soften.
After the water has mostly evaporated, turn off the heat, add a dash of cream and stir.
Beef silverside fat sandwich.
Ingredients
Cooked corned beef.
Frozen sourdough baguette — thawed.
Grass-fed butter
Freshly cracked pepper corns
Dijon mustard
Instructions
Trowel butter onto a piece of thawed sourdough bread. Freezing sourdough bread develops resistant starch.
Add dollops of Dijon mustard.
Apply a layer of warm fat.
Season with freshly cracked peppercorns.
Cover your lap with a large dish drying cloth and wear a bib.
Roll up your sleeves and get stuck into the sandwich.
Rejoice in the feeling of the fat running down your chin and down your forearms.
These are a gallery of photographs. Select one image and scroll through the rest.
Thoughts on the meal
I enjoy corned beef hash[x]; it’s a dish I grew up with. Among many other meals, my dad would often make it. He learned to prepare it during his boyhood in the South Pacific during World War II, where fresh meat was hard to come by. The only options available were tinned meat or local game.
A piece of corned silverside is an affordable option for bulk meat in lunches.
This piece of beef cost approximately $AUD20, or $AUD10/kilogram. If I can get four meals (possibly six meals), it will work out to about $AUD5/meal.
The first meal (the fat sandwich) for this piece of beef brought back some great memories when Mum would make corned beef and I’d get the fat and make a sandwich. I savoured every bite of this open sandwich and enjoyed the contrasting flavours of the pickle.
Questions
Do you like corned beef?
Do you like fat sandwiches?
How would you make a fat sandwich?
Stay tuned
I’ll add photographs of how I use the rest of the beef during the week.
Endnotesꜜ
[i] The modern clinical term is “clinical adiposity.” I prefer the term fat because it is universally understood.
[ii] The term corned comes from the old English word corn, which referred to small, hard particles—not just cereal grains. In the case of corned beef, it refers to the large-grained rock salt (sometimes called “corns” of salt) used in the curing process.
[iii] Corned beef is a type of salt-cured beef, traditionally made from brisket.
[iv] Canned corned beef is a shelf-stable meat product made primarily from beef, but it includes ingredients to preserve flavour and texture. The ingredients include sodium nitrite, added salt, and a small amount of sugar (which is disappointing). Cooking can convert the nitrites to nitrates.
[v] “Spud” is a casual or slang term for a potato. For example, “baked spud” or “mashed spuds.” It is used in many English-speaking countries.
[vi]Beef silverside is a lean, boneless cut of beef taken from the hindquarter of the cow, specifically from the top portion of the round primal, just above the leg muscles. It’s known for its coarse grain and minimal marbling, which makes it a budget-friendly and versatile option in many cuisines.
[viii] Bread is high carbohydrate and not part of a low carbohydrate diet.
[ix] A note about the images used in this post. The featured image and a couple of other images were generated with Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT. I’m conscious that there are some bloggers and readers who oppose the use of large language models for generating content. I’m comfortable with using large language models to help with content on YummyLummy.com
[x] Corned beef hash is a hearty, savoury dish made by combining chopped or shredded corned beef with diced potatoes and onions, then frying the mixture until it’s golden and crispy. It’s a classic comfort food with roots in frugal cooking—originally designed to use up leftovers, especially from a corned beef dinner.
From time to time, I’m adding some starches to my diet. It’s been a while since I’ve eaten any rice. Having just spent a weekend with many Asians, an innate fondness for rice and chopsticks welled up to the surface. I often cook with chopsticks, e.g., when I make blue vein cheese sauce, wooden chopsticks are my go-to tool for stirring and mixing.
The rice in the congee[i] is problematic. The starch constitutes carbohydrates I do not need. I can partially ameliorate the problem by freezing the cooked rice and converting it to resistant starch to lower the glycaemic index.
Recipe
Ingredients
Rice
Beef broth
Beef short ribs
Beef chuck steak
Water
Salt
Equipment
Fast/slow cooker
Instructions
Wash a cup of uncooked rice and then add it to the slow cooker.
Add a cup of beef broth and enough water to cover the rice by one distal phalange.
Add the beef short ribs and beef chuck.
Add some salt.
Cook for 8 hours.
At the end of 8 hours, add the optional sterilisation by steam under pressure in the pressure cooker. I sometimes do this if I’m using beef broth that has been in the refrigerator for a week or more. While the risk of bacterial contamination is low because of the hygiene precautions I take, this step is belt and braces.
If you use a fast/slow cooker (or similar device), this can be achieved without changing cooking vessels.
Transfer the contents into a large bowl and start to pull the meat and mix it with the rice gruel.
Remove the rib bones.
Refrigerate the congee overnight so the rice develops resistant starch.
Aliquots can now be taken and reheated for small meals, like lunch.
Reheating
Divide the refrigerated congee into six portions.
Add the portions to vacuum bags and seal the bags.
Reheat the contents in water bath at 80 °C for 45 minutes. The solidified beef fat will melt, and the rice and meat with break up and become softer.
Pour the hot congee into a bowl.
Serve the reheated congee, which has now developed resistant starch, in a bowl and eat with a spoon.
You can add shredded pork and lettuce.
Photographs
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Thoughts on the meal
My mother makes my favourite congee. It is chicken congee, and she uses a pressure cooker. She would always use a whole chicken and basic white long-grain rice. Mum would add soy sauce and other Chinese herbs and spices. In serving, we’d have shredded iceberg lettuce, shredded ham, plus extra soy sauce. We’d eat the jook (that’s what we called congee) for an evening meal most of the time in winter. It would keep us warm. If there was any leftover, we may get some reheated for lunch.
My version of this recipe is a significant departure from my mother’s version. I’m incorporating some of my preferences. There is no soy sauce, no seed oils, no herbs and spices. The flavours come from salt and the meat, and the rib bones, which were in the slow cooker. This congee or jook is also laden with beef fat, gloriously unctuous[ii] beef fat.
Nutrient values for rice.
Nutrient
Per 1 Cup (≈186 g)
Per 100 g
% Daily Value (1 Cup)
Calories
242 kcal
130 kcal
~12%
Carbohydrates
53 g
28.5 g
~18%
Protein
4.4 g
2.4 g
~9%
Fat
0.4 g
0.2 g
~1%
Fibre
0.8 g
0.4 g
~3%
Sugars
0.2 g
0.1 g
—
Walking Photographs
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[i] noun [mass noun] (in Chinese cooking) broth or porridge made from rice.
[ii] adjective (of food or drink) having a pleasingly rich taste
The cost of living is getting higher. How many times a day do we hear or read that in the news and on social media?
The majority of posts on this blog feature expensive cuts of meat.
With the cost of food rising, I need to increase my consumption of more economical cuts. I will limit buying the more expensive cuts of meat.
Most days, lunch is supermarket bought beef mince (ground beef for North American readers).
To break up the monotony, other “economical” cuts include chuck and brisket.
This beef brisket cost about $AUD30 for about 1.8 kg. That’s roughly $AUD17/kg.
Most of the scotch fillet steak or rump steak I buy is more expensive than that. This is particularly true if the meat is Coorong Black Angus beef.
This piece of brisket will give me with eight serves ($AUD3.75).
Recipe
Tonight I prepared some beef brisket meat with a creamy sauce, some broccolini, and sourdough bread.
Ingredients
Brisket — Initially cooked in a slow cooker for 8 hours. It was then refrigerated. For this meal, the brisket is finely diced.
Sourdough bread — organic sourdough bread frozen to develop resistant starch, and then thawed and toasted.
Broccolini
Swiss brown mushrooms
Cream cheese
Blue vein cheese
Pure pouring cream
Beef fat — the fat separated from the cooking liquor from the slow cooker.
Beef broth — the cooking liquor from the slow cooker.
Butter
Equipment
Frypan
Kettle
Instructions
Add the diced beef, beef broth, and beef fat to the frypan. Gently heat the contents until the liquid has evaporated. Continue heating until the meat has softened. Set the reheated brisket aside.
Sauté the mushrooms in butter. The mushrooms will soften when they have absorbed the water from the butter. Then, add crumbled blue vein cheese and the cream cheese. Stir slowly and thoroughly. Finish with a dash of pure pouring cream and season with freshly cracked black peppercorns.
Parboil the broccolini with boiling water from the kettle.
Place the toasted sourdough bread on a dinner plate. Place the broccolini on the toast. Spoon the brisket next to the bread. Spoon the sauce over the broccolini and bread and let the rest settle next to the meat.
Thoughts on the meal
While beef short rib meat is more unctuous, as a cheaper cut, brisket is pretty good.
Beef and blue vein cheese go well together and combine well on the toast which adds a crunchy mouthfeel.
The broccolini adds some colour to the dish.
Photographs
These are photographs of the meal. Select one and then scroll through the rest.
Questions
What is your favourite “cheap” cut of beef?
Do you like brisket? How do you cook it?
Do you eat leftovers for lunch?
Some of the other meals from this brisket
Other photographs
Some other photographs from this week.
Beef brisket. Slowly cooked beef brisket reheated in a frypan with beef fat and beef broth. Served on sourdough bread, which had been frozen to develop resistant starch. The photograph features a Dolphins NRL plate.
Today began with strange dreams. I know I tossed and turned a lot. My dreams involved family members in unusual predicaments. Friends’ faces appeared randomly. There were no clear actions in the dreams.
This morning, I went for a walk along the beach and enjoyed the early sunrise. I expect to continue relishing this until October, when daylight saving time begins, which may affect my mood. Many people prefer walking later in the day. Daylight saving times makes this choice easier. I treasure walking in early morning light and sunshine.
Recipe
Ingredients
Butter
Spinach leaves
Swiss brown mushrooms
Cream cheese (softened)
Cream
Blue vein cheese
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Method
Roughly cut some Swiss brown mushrooms.
Place a frypan over medium heat. Add the butter and allow it to melt (but not brown).
Sauté the mushrooms.
Increase the heat to medium–high and add the spinach in batches, stirring each handful until just wilted before adding more.
Once all the spinach is wilted, reduce the heat to medium. Stir through the cream cheese and heavy cream until the mixture is smooth and glossy.
Crumble in the blue vein cheese. Remember to stir constantly. Continue to cook for 2–3 minutes. Cook until the sauce thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.
Season with salt and pepper.
Make ahead and “safe” storage.
This dish can be prepared up to a day in advance.
Cool completely, cover and refrigerate.
To reheat, gently warm in a saucepan over low heat. Add a splash of cream if the sauce has thickened too much.
Enjoy with steak, roast chicken or simply on its own for a luscious side.
Photographs
This is a gallery of photographs. Select one and scroll through the rest of the images.
Thoughts on the meal
Sometimes, I enjoy eating spinach leaves. I used to have steamed spinach leaves every morning with some cheese and a steamed egg. Later, I read about some issues related to eating too much spinach.
I had the creamed spinach as a side dish with a rump cap steak. The steak and creamed spinach go well together.
I enjoyed the meal. It was delicious.
Questions
Do you dream a lot?
Do you remember your dreams?
How do you feel about daylight saving time?
Do you enjoy eating spinach leaves?
Morning photographs
ISO 280, focal length 24 mm, shutter speed 1/250th second, and aperture f8.
