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For NitroX and other culinary adventurous Aussies....

The abomination before the Lord commonly known as "silverside" or "corned beef" is usually a brisket. You may be able to get a whole brisket from a local butcher before they perform that vile conversion to it (the butcher down the street from where I lived in Melb didn't even charge extra for a real brisket, although I suspect I was the first to request such an item at that shop). Here is a method commonly used in Texas and the southern and southwestern USA to prepare it and make it much more edible, but you do have to start with a piece of raw brisket before the corning process is done to convert it to silverside.

If you don't have any real wood or wood chips, this is not worth making, because if done over gas alone it will end up tasting like a roast.

1, Make a sauce, preferably 24 hours in advance to let the flavors mix..this can be done to taste with any of several "recipes" for BBQ sauce or you can buy the commercial slop from Kraft. There is no standard sauce for this. Depending on preferred level of "spicy", typical ingredients include a mix of ketchup, mustard, diced onions, diced garlic, diced jalapeños, and paprika. The ketchup is listed because if you use tomato sauce it will be too thin to stick to the meat..sauce may be used but will have to be thickened with flour so that it will stay on the meat. Also if you don't like hot and spicy, skip the jalapeños.

2. Some wood chips are required if you have to do it on a gas grill, the best wood chips for it are hickory or pecan or possibly mesquite but I don't think most Aussies would like mesquite (also too much mesquite makes it taste like burned oil). These wood chips are available in some places in Australia but are unfortunately pricy. Boxwood might be suitable as well although I've never cooked over boxwood.

3. Shortly before plopping the brisket into the pit, rub it down with salt, pepper, garlic powder or diced garlic, onion powder or diced onion, and some paprika. Go easy on the amount of paprika as too much of that can cause a lot of trips to the toilet for the next few days.

4. Take a paint brush with natural bristles and use it to brush the meat down with the sauce mentioned in item #1 before placing on the fire.

5. Have the pit going at a very low temperature, approximately 100 C, with some of the wood chips in the fire to produce smoke.

6. Place the brisket on the pit, fatty side down, and shut the lid...check regularly to make certain the temperature remains at roughly 100 C.

7. Brush the meat down with the sauce as necessary to keep it from drying out.

8. The brisket should be done anywhere from 6 to 9 hours after you started.

Brisket as smoked in this manner is typically served with onions, jalapeños, beans, guacamole, cornbread, and sometimes flour tortillas.

Richard