Pastrami

solaryellow said:

Beyond brisket and beef plate, I have had great results using sirloin tip roast for pastrami. Any good boneless solid chunk of beef should work well.

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Moikel said:

When in doubt pull out my dearly departed mothers cookbooks. Man that woman could cook.Silverside =the outside rear portion of the hind leg.The name silverside comes from the sheen of its internal surface.Topside  = inner thigh portion of hindquarter. Round steak or thick flank=front portion of the thigh of the hind leg. I think in the USA you call  all of it round.Down under the next cut moving forward is rump(thickly fleshed part of hips) then sirloin whereas you guys call them sirloin collectively. Hope this helps The silverside does make great cornbeef/pastrami.

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Venture said:

JC, this one has puzzled me for a long time.  Pops made a great post on this, but I can't find it now.  Maybe he will weigh in?

Silverside is not a term you will see much in the US.  Best I can tell it comes off what we would call the bottom round.  See:

http://www.ask.com/wiki/Silverside_(beef)

Due to the conflicting terms, part of the round and the bottom sirloin, or even the sirloin itself get all mixed up erroneously.  Many of these terms come from marketing terms for meat, rather than true cuts, and different countries have different terminology, too..  To make it even more confusing, the true cuts of meat are changing all the time as butchers separate out muscle groups from what were once subprimal cuts.  They have learned that selling cuts from muscle groups often reaps better profit than how they used to cut up the subprimals.

I hope this helps until Pops comes along.  He will probably post great pics.  Whatever he tells you will be good to take to the bank!  LOL

Good luck and good smoking.

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Pops6927 said:

"Silverside" that part of the sirloin tip/bottom round that has a silver membrane on it that has to be removed lest it be tough and sinewy; it is the outer sheath of the muscle group.  It actually is best shown in a slice of ham vs. beef, as the ham slice is not separated into it's subprimals:

You can see the sirloin tip and the bottom round and they are separated by a muscle group line, which is the silver membrane.  Likewise on the other side of the bone to a lesser amount between the top round and the sirloin tip, but moreso a softer, fattier line than the harder muscle sheath of the bottom/tip.  The side of the sirloin tip next to the bottom is referred to as 'silverside' as well as the adjoining side of the bottom round because they both share the same silver membrane, so 'silverside' can come from both sirloin tip and bottom round. 

In a previous post I showed 'silverside' as part of the sirloin tip, which is commonly referred to as such:

Likewise, adjoining to it is the bottom round:

or from the whole bottom round/gooseneck:

another shot of untrimmed silverside on the bottom round:

Hope this explains it!

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SmokinAl said:

Any cut of meat can be "corned". For me though, pastrami is just not pastrami if it's not from a brisket.

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