Cured, slow Prosecco and Chipotle cooked, pulled brisket

Posted by petra08 on July 18, 2014 · 9 Comments 

It isn’t very often I get a specific request for dinner but as the summer seems to have left us for a cold and rainy spell, along with the fact that there is a new butcher, a slow cooked shoulder of lamb sounded like a great idea. We went to the butcher, the Black Pig in St Georges passage, after the market and as a surprise she had some pigs cheeks for me! They were frozen so I still needed some lamb but I got side tracked by a piece of brisket. This is a new one as I usually never buy brisket but this looked irresistible.

 

 

All of the meat from the Black Pig comes from small farms and it looks amazing. The shoulder of lamb looked delicious but the moment I saw the brisket I knew it would be great! I am not sure if this is weird or not but I had to get some.

 

I started by curing the brisket.

 

Rosemary and lemon grass cure

Preparation time 5 minutes 

curing time 24 hours

Ingredients

• 1 lemon grass stalk
• 1 rosemary stalk
• 1 dl salt
• 1/2 dl demerara sugar
• 1/2 dl molasses
• 1 piece of brisket

Bruise the lemon grass stalk, I used a rolling pin, and then slice it roughly. Mix the salt, sugar and molasses, mix in the rosemary and lemon grass.

 

 

Place the meat in a plastic bag with the cure, place it in a deep bowl and place  a heavy weight on top and leave for 24 hours. Turn half way.

 

 

Slow cooked prosecco brisket

preparation time 10 minutes

cooking time 4.5 hours

oven 160C or 320F

serves 4-6

 

Ingredients

• 1 piece of brisket
• 1 carrot
• 1 onion
• 3 spring onions
• 4 dl or 2 cups of prosecco
• 2 dl or 1 cup of water, or until the brisket is covered
• 4 Chipotle chiles, I used dried ones
• black pepper
• 1/2 dl or 1/4 cup soy sauce

I took the brisket out of the cure, rinsed it and patted it dry.

 

 

I chopped the Chipotle chiles, onion, carrot and spring onion.

 

Chipotle chile, they are dark and have a lovely smokey flavor

 

I fried the chiles in a little oil until smoking and the chile fumes made me cough ever so slightly! I then added the brisket, fat side down and fried it until browned. I then turned it over to pan fried the other side to brown it before adding the chopped vegetables and cracked black pepper.

 

 

 

I then added the prosecco and water until the meat was covered (the fatty side up), put the lid on the pan and placed in the oven for 3 hours. You don’t need to do anything at all, just leave it to do it’s magic!

Check on it after 3 hours and add the soy sauce, you don’t need to use all of it is you think it might be too much. Cook for another hour. There will still be more time to add spices if you wish.

The meat is ready when it easily flakes off with a fork. Take it out of the pan and rest wrapped in tin foil. Place the pan on the cooker and start reducing the stock until there is 1/2 or 1/3 left. Thicken with corn starch if necessary before serving. I served mine with the vegetables but if you wish strain reduced stock for a smooth gravy.

 

I had made butternut squash fries and steamed sweetcorn and a baked courgette to go with it.

 

Butternut fries

preparation time 10 minutes

cooking time 30-40 minutes, depending on size

oven 180C or 360F

serves 2

Ingredients

• 1/4 large butternut squash
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tbsp mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp paprika powder
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds

Crush the garlic and mix with the spices and the oil.

 

 

Peel and cut up the butternut in to “fries”. Place in a plastic bag, add the spice mix and shake until the butternut is covered.

Place on a non stick sheet and bake until soft all the way through and it should be a little crispy on the outside as well.

 

 

Steam the sweetcorn and bake the courgette, I baked it whole with the butternut fries, just picked a few wholes and placed it underneath in the oven. I sliced it before serving.

 

 

Courgette/zucchini can be a little bland so I took some mushrooms I had left over from cooking my mushroom broth, see recipe here, it was such a waste to throw them away. I chopped them and mixed with 1 tbsp of Greek yogurt, pepper and some lemon zest and served with the courgette.

 

 

It worked really well and the flavors complimented each other but the main attraction was the brisket. I removed the fat and pulled the brisket, it was just like I imagined at the butchers.

 

 

The meat was tender and packed with flavor, the chipotle added a nice heat kick and the vegetables helped make the dish a bit lighter. I love slow cooked food, the smell of something cooking spreading in the house whilst cooking and the satisfaction when something actually turns out as you imagined! What a treat! There was left overs as well but that is for another blog.

 

 

Filed under Allotment/Veg, Beef, Carrot, Chilli, Courgette, Main course, Meat, Onion, Proescco, Recipe, Spring onion, Sweet corn, White, Wine · Tagged with brisket, chipotle chile