CORNED SILVERSIDE WITH MUSTARD SAUCE (Serves 6)

Until we came to Australia, the only corned beef we had eaten came from a tin. I hadn’t a clue what to do with it (Google hadn’t been invented then!), so I put it in a casserole the first time I cooked it. That put me off it completely until our great friend Donna at Walden Park persuaded me to try her recipe.

Suffice to say it is now one of our all-time favourites, not least because it is so good cold the next day!

Ingredients

1 Corned Silverside Joint

A handful of washed but not peeled carrots

A few stalks of celery

A bunch of fresh parsley

2 brown onions (skin on but root chopped off)

1 tsp mustard seeds

A dash of cider vinegar

40g butter

2 tbsp plain flour

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

Juice of half a lemon

2 tbsp fresh chopped parsley

2 tbsp cream

Salt and black pepper to taste

Place the Silverside, carrots, celery, parsley, onions, mustard seeds and cider vinegar into a slow cooker. Cover with water and cook on low for 8 hours.

When the joint is cooked and resting, boil 3 cups of the broth in a saucepan until reduced by a third. In a separate saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux. Stir for a minute, then gradually whisk in the reduced broth until smooth. Stir in the mustard, lemon juice and cream. Add the parsley and season to taste.

Slice the Corned Silverside, remove the skin from the onion and serve with the carrot and mashed potatoes, all covered in huge amounts of the sauce.