I just pulled a 2 1/2 pound flat-cut beef brisket out of my freezer, where it has been for at least half a year, and probably longer. The meat doesn’t look freezer-burned, but since I mostly just cook for myself, that wouldn’t stop me if it was. My fridge is notoriously slow for defrosting meat, so it may not be ready to cook for a few days.
As a Jew raised in barbecue-loving Florida, I really like brisket, but have never attempted to make my own. I only bought this because it was on sale. I don’t own a crockpot or slow-cooker and don’t have access to a grill or a smoker, so what I can I do using a conventional oven to make kick-ass, moist, tender, falling-apart, melt-in-your-mouth brisket? I have several marinade choices here including three different barbecue sauces, as well as things like cider vinegar, tomato paste, brown sugar, ketchup, honey, and liquid smoke if anyone has an amazing (and foolproof) recipe for their own sauce. I’ve heard about some people using Coca-Cola as a brisket marinade (or an ingredient) as well.
Beyond the sauce/marinade, ar there any basic guidelines to follow? I always hear “low and slow,” but in this context, what would that entail?
Mix together 2 tablespoons chili powder, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. pepper (freshly ground if possible), and 2 crumbled bay leaves
Place meat fat side down in any pan
Sprinkle chili powder mixture evenly over it
Seal it–a lid, aluminum foil, whatever just so it’s a tight seal
Cook it about 350F for 3-4 hours
Then: scrape off the chili powder mixture, and you can either apply your bbq sauce then, or just use the cooking juices (which should be strained to get out the bay leaf pieces)
This has never failed me and I’m really not much of a cook.
I would suggest a braise. Here is the deal, brisket has a bunch of connective tissue. This makes the meat tough. If you cook it for a long time at a low temp, at some point the connective tissue will break down and the meat becomes tender. In the BBQ world this might be 12 hours or so at 200F. Here is one recipe Here is one that is a bit more complex
ETA: I have always seen it recommended that you cook the meat fat side up so that the fat keeps the meat moist.
I must try brisket “American style” some time. Over here I’d braise it, in an inch or so of either stock or beer (bitter or stout), with a whole onion or two and some peeled carrots, in a covered roasting dish or crock with an extra lid of foil to help the moisture seal. Twelve hours is doubtless terrific but I get good results after maybe three - moist heat for that length of time does a fair job of rendering the connective tissue. I have a superstition that beer improves this process, but a halfway competent food scientist could probably refute me.
Our local butcher does a bang-up job of tying brisket with string. Our local supermarket puts it in net instead, which doesn’t do anything like as good a job - the last one we had “burst its banks”, although it was still perfectly edible.
Which end of the brisket is it? Makes a bit of difference. Ideally, as Rick mentioned, brisket should be cooked at 200ºF for 8-10 hours to really make it tender. Failing that, a braise is probably your best bet. But a 2.5lb. piece won’t take that long to cook - 3-4 hours at 350ºF will do.
Just free-styling it here, but try a rub of paprika, black pepper, seasoned salt and garlic powder. Then stick it in a foil pan with about an inch of beer and a couple of glugs of BBQ sauce in it. Tent with foil and cook.
I did brisket the other week. You put it in an oven-proof dish and add a pint or two of stock. Cover and cook in the oven. Long and slow - about 40 minutes per pound + 40 minutes. Then take the meat and put it in the fridge: it tastes (and carves) far better cold.
the dive master does the best pulled beef brisket bbq i’ve ever had.
he uses a broiling pan, dumps a can or two of foster’s beer in the bottom of the pan and slaps the brisket (fat side up, of course) on the rack above the beer and then throws the whole thing in the oven and cooks it at low temp for about three hours. it steams the meat. completely awesome with or without adding the bbq sauce!
What I ended up doing is making a dry rub with kosher salt, fresh-cracked black pepper, chili powder, paprika, cumin, dried onion flakes, adobo, Cajun seasoning, and BBQ seasoning, and rubbed that into both sides of the brisket. Then I squirted some liquid smoke, barbecue sauce, and teriyaki sauce onto it, covered with plastic wrap, and put it back in the fridge to absorb those flavors for a few hours.
Tonight I’ll braise it – first the quick sear in a pan with a little hot EVOO, then back into a foil-covered pan in the oven for a few hours, with a can of beer mixed into the original liquid smoke/barbecue/teriyaki “glaze,” and plenty of sliced sweet onions. How does that sound?
I’ve done this one before; think I got the recipe from a mailing list for freezer-cooking (as in, preparing meals ahead to be frozen then thawed whe needed). Obviously you’ve got just a single brisket, so you would be able to halve everything.
Brisket for a Bunch
from Dierbergs’ Everybody Cooks Magazine
2 beef briskets (about 4 pounds each)
1 bottle (18 ounces) prepared barbeque sauce (1 1/2 cups)
1 can (12 ounces) beer, OR 1 1/2 cups apple juice
1 large onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon Creole seasoning
Trim fat from briskets; place in a single layer in large foil roaster pan.
Place on jellyroll pan to stabilize roster. In medium bowl, stir together
remaining ingredients; pour over meat. Cover; bake in 350F oven for 3
hours or until meat is very tender when pierced with fork. Cool before
cutting across grain into thin slices. Refrigerate meat and pan juices
separately for several hours or overnight. Arrange meat in large shallow
casserole or 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Skim fat from top of juices. Pour
over meat. Cover; reheat in 350F oven for 30 to 40 minutes.
Makes 16 servings.
Look up something called New England Boiled Dinner (or corned beef and cabbage soup). YUM.
It’s pretty easy – stuff a corned beef, spices and all, into a pot. If you’re not a salt fan, rinse the beef off before dumping it in the pot. I chucked an extra bay leaf in for kicks.
Pour water in to cover (I think), simmer for about 3-4 hours or until the meat’s tender. You’re going to have to skim a lot of fatty slime off initially so keep an eye on it there but after a while the slime will stop forming and you can go do other things.
When the meat’s tender, remove it from the pot and trim the fat off and slice. Throw in rough-chopped potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and onion. Simmer those on high until the cabbage and onion go transparent. This should be about 30 minutes.
Throw sliced meat back into the soup to warm up.
Serve. NOMNOMNOM.
Dark beer (I went for Guinness extra stout) and buttered and toasted sourdough slices for dipping are extra icing.
