Slow Cooking Cheap Cuts: Beer Brisket
Another repost, from April 2007
Brisket is a very cheap, tough cut of beef, but when you cook it slow and long those tough fibres soften into tender but firm meat. The flavour, moreover, is heavenly, far tastier than your quick-cook expensive and tender cuts.
Yesterday I got lucky and was able to pick up a brisket piece of Orkney Gold, my local butcher's best grade of beef. It's great meat, from slow-grown grass-fed suckling herds (as opposed to fast-grown, factory farmed cows which are forced to put on weight as fast as possible to get them out of the doors - this has a significant effect on the development of flavour).
To top off a perfect cut of beef Orkney Gold is hung for a minimum of 21 days on the bone to develop flavour and deep-down moistness - most supermarkets (and sadly many butchers) will hang beef for two or three days, a week at most. And how much did this piece of some of Britain's best beef (enough to stuff two people) cost me? Just over three pounds sterling. The cheapest cuts of the best meat - can't beat em.
Beer brisket (for two people)
Put the brisket in a roasting tin or casserole dish - but first sear it on both sides in a very hot frying pan. Don't wuss out on this, you want it almost blackened when you pull it off the surface. The effect on flavour is major - those little browned bits have as much flavour as the rest of the meat put together, and when they dissolve into the gravy they work magic.
Once it's seared and in the dish, thinly slice the onion and cover the brisket evenly with it. Mix together everything else except the cornflour, and pour a bit into the hot frying pan and scrub about with a spatula or wooden spoon to deglaze it (dissolve the browned bits off the surface) - don't waste that flavour magic. Then pour all the liquid over the brisket in the dish, and wrap the whole thing in foil. Put it in the oven and cook it at 150c for a good four hours.
Unwrap the dish and lift the brisket out - it should look like this. Mmm...unbelievably succulent. It just falls off the bone, I picked it up with tongs and it fell apart. But because brisket has so much texture it stays firm and steaky, not jellyish.
The remaining fluid in the casserole. Scoop the onions out, then mix the cornflour with a little bit of water. Mix it into that pan juice, slosh it into a pan and heat it on the stove, stirring till it thickens to make a nice rich gravy.
With the bones lifted out, the brisket goes back in the dish and you can pour the gravy over it.
And the finished beer brisket is served up, in this case with piles of buttery mashed potato and a spoonful of the onions for me.
Brisket is a very cheap, tough cut of beef, but when you cook it slow and long those tough fibres soften into tender but firm meat. The flavour, moreover, is heavenly, far tastier than your quick-cook expensive and tender cuts.
Yesterday I got lucky and was able to pick up a brisket piece of Orkney Gold, my local butcher's best grade of beef. It's great meat, from slow-grown grass-fed suckling herds (as opposed to fast-grown, factory farmed cows which are forced to put on weight as fast as possible to get them out of the doors - this has a significant effect on the development of flavour).
To top off a perfect cut of beef Orkney Gold is hung for a minimum of 21 days on the bone to develop flavour and deep-down moistness - most supermarkets (and sadly many butchers) will hang beef for two or three days, a week at most. And how much did this piece of some of Britain's best beef (enough to stuff two people) cost me? Just over three pounds sterling. The cheapest cuts of the best meat - can't beat em.
Beer brisket (for two people)
- Large piece of brisket (about two or two and a half pounds - a lot of it is bone)
- Two large cloves of garlic
- Salt
- Two bayleaves
- One large onion
- Small handful of fresh thyme or (if you must) half a teaspoon dried thyme
- Three quarters of a pint of (preferably) ale - just don't use cheap lager.
- One tablespoon of brown sugar
- One cube of beef or vegetable stock
- One tablespoon of ground black pepper
- One tablespoon of cornflour
Put the brisket in a roasting tin or casserole dish - but first sear it on both sides in a very hot frying pan. Don't wuss out on this, you want it almost blackened when you pull it off the surface. The effect on flavour is major - those little browned bits have as much flavour as the rest of the meat put together, and when they dissolve into the gravy they work magic.
Once it's seared and in the dish, thinly slice the onion and cover the brisket evenly with it. Mix together everything else except the cornflour, and pour a bit into the hot frying pan and scrub about with a spatula or wooden spoon to deglaze it (dissolve the browned bits off the surface) - don't waste that flavour magic. Then pour all the liquid over the brisket in the dish, and wrap the whole thing in foil. Put it in the oven and cook it at 150c for a good four hours.
Unwrap the dish and lift the brisket out - it should look like this. Mmm...unbelievably succulent. It just falls off the bone, I picked it up with tongs and it fell apart. But because brisket has so much texture it stays firm and steaky, not jellyish.
The remaining fluid in the casserole. Scoop the onions out, then mix the cornflour with a little bit of water. Mix it into that pan juice, slosh it into a pan and heat it on the stove, stirring till it thickens to make a nice rich gravy.
With the bones lifted out, the brisket goes back in the dish and you can pour the gravy over it.
And the finished beer brisket is served up, in this case with piles of buttery mashed potato and a spoonful of the onions for me.
Labels: Beef, beer, Black pepper, brisket, Cook, Frying pan, Garlic, Gravy, Mashed potato, slow cooking, tough cuts
posted by Mark at
20:00
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