Brisket

Growing up, I never realized brisket was a tough cut of beef. Imagine my surprise, when shortly after me and the artist formerly known as Frau Lobster set up housekeeping and I tried to cook a brisket over an open fire on the grill. Medium rare boot leather.



Of course eventually I'll cave and buy a smoker at Wal-Mart. They're not expensive unless you figure the purchase of a smoker offsets most of a summer's rocket launches. A smoker also costs more than brewing a batch of beer. In other words, there are priorities, damnit.



I use even lower temperatures in the oven than Mom did with her briskets. Maybe I don't need to, I think she used 250°F. And about an hour before serving it, she removed it and sliced it so the broth could work its way into the meat better.



I put mine in chicken broth and let it go overnight, about 15 hours on 170°F to simulate smoker temperatures. Then I sliced it and returned it to the oven for a few more hours while we went to church. Well, sort of went to church. We got there when it was over, basically, but got to say hey to folks. And I grabbed a CD of the sermon.



So then I cut up some potatoes and onions, put some baby carrots in and a tablespoon or so of minced garlic and turned the oven up to 300°F to assist in cooking the veggies, gave it two more hours.



Gawd but my house smelled good by the time we ate dinner.



Now I'm cooking down the broth (spiked with three more quarts of chicken broth) with the leftover meat, having added about four tablespoons of tomato paste. The plan is to make egg noodles to put in this stock. Another childhood favorite.