Tag: brisket

Cooking in somebody else’s kitchen, Part I

The past month I’ve been cooking in two unfamiliar kitchens, the first being the San Francisco bachelor/bachelorette pad shared by several friends of my daughter and the second the “camp” belonging to my wife in the Adirondacks.

In San Francisco, my task was to prepare a Texas brisket meal for 60 people for the wedding party. I knew what I was in for and brought a number of key components with me, including my chef’s knife, a stack of aluminum trays and several necessary spices. But there were some things too big to carry on the plane, like the brisket itself and hickory chunks for the smoker (my old one from Phillip Claypool, which had been kindly stored in the back yard of the same SF flat). Chunks were hard since not only are San Franciscans not known for their smoking but in fact there is a city ordinance against open fires; finally I found a small expensive bag at Action Rentals, which also rents cooking equipment.

Brisket, on the other hand, was a major score. Cash & Carry, a restaurant wholesaler, had USDA Choice for $1.57 a pound… a lower price than I’ve ever seen in Texas. They also had an enormous bag of shredded cabbage at the same per-pound price I’d paid for the 10 pounds I’d just shredded myself to make sour slaw, so I added that to the hand truck. I stood in line with several other happy guys sharing hints (but no trade secrets) for what we were going to do with our brisket.

I was prepared for challenges in the prep, just didn’t know what they would be. The beans (to be used for Jack Daniels style baked beans eventually) were precooked in another alien location, the galley kitchen of the “home away” where I was staying with my boys; I used every pot and pan in the place. Back at the flat, the cookspace turned out to be tiny and without a cutting surface so I went out and bought a cutting board, the only outright cookware purchase I made. And I had too many briskets to fit in the smoker so I had to cook them in two batches, making for a 10 am to midnight cooking day. Fortunately the apartment dwellers were away at the formal pre-wedding ball where I was supposed to be; I put in an appearance then scurried back to tend my brisket and I knew the culinary gods were smiling when I was able to carry four trays of dripping brisket down three flights of stairs to my car parked in the towaway zone without spilling anything on my fancy duds.

The meal turned out just like it was supposed to, served the next night to hungry people at a conference center in the redwoods who kept coming back for seconds, which I was happy to be able to offer them. One half a brisket made it through the night and for the rest of the weekend whenever you went into the kitchen at the center (which hadn’t been available to me for prep) you’d see somebody surreptitiously sneaking a scrap out of the fridge. Among them were the renowned caterers who prepared the next night’s wedding feast, high praise indeed.

My brisket recipe, revisited

My brisket recipe
My brisket recipe

After the writeup on Texas barbecue, several folks asked if I would repost my original brisket recipe as text, not an image, for easier reading. Here you go. I’ve added a few thoughts on technique, in italics. This recipe came to me in a package of materials purchased through some kind of multilevel marketing exchange back in the 80s. You would pay the sender $1 for the packet and then send it on to 10 new people, each of whom would send $1 to you. For whatever reason, this did not make me rich, but the recipe is worth all of $1 and more.

5 Easy Steps to Delicious Brisket
(8 to 10 lb. Brisket)

1. First – Rub salt, pepper and brown sugar on both sides of brisket. Leave the fat side up thru entire cooking time.
Unlike some, I recommend lightly trimming away the fat while still leaving a good layer over the meat. If you don’t trim at all you are going to end up with a lot of tasty smoked fat.
2. Second – Put on smoker “fat side up”. Remember not open flame, just hot fire with smoke. Charcoal broquett is fine.
Smoking is cooking with indirect heat, in which the fire is in another part of the grill and the smoke and heat are drawn across the food by the way you manage your airflow. The good smoky flavor is going to come from chunks of hickory or oak (I find mesquite and apple too light in flavor) that you will soak for 30 minutes or more before adding to the fire. Also, you need a source of moisture, such as a pan of water inside the cooking vessel, to humidify the cooking atmosphere and concentrate the flavor.
3. Third- Leave on smoker for 3 hours checking fire every 45 minutes so bottom of brisket won’t burn.
During this time you should be steadily replenishing the charcoal and wood chunks for a constant smoky fire. I like to leave the smoke vents open at the beginning to build up a good fire, then shut them completely to grab all that sweet smoke, then open them a little just before the fire is about to go out and leave that way for duration of cooking.
4. Fourth- To finish for perfect tenderness wrap in foil, put in loaf pan, and finish in the oven at 325 degrees for 2 to 3 hours. The last hour of cooking in oven, test by sticking a fork in brisket at both thick part and thin part. When fork goes in easily without force it’s done.
5. Fifth – Unwrap; let cool slightly before slicing. Remember: Never put B.B.Q. Sauce on brisket while cooking. The smoke gives the flavor and the oven gives great tenderness.