Follow These Tips To Smoke The Perfect Brisket
Barbeque has the ability to bring people together for a festive celebration. There is a reason why Brisket tops the world of barbeque meat goodness: the perfect brisket has thick smoke bark, great seasoning, is super juicy and tender on the inside, and can be shared in a group of friends.
These days, it is impossible to go to your favorite barbeque joint for brisket, because of a countrywide lockdown, but that doesn’t mean you cannot enjoy a perfect brisket at your home. While smoking a restaurant-quality brisket can be tough and challenging at home, staying mindful of a few things can help you achieve smoked perfection every time. After getting in touch with professional pitmasters, we have enlisted several tips that will guarantee a juicy piece of meat.
Source A Prime Cut Of Meat
The brisket muscle is generally a little tough because it belongs to that part of the cow that gets a lot of stretching. In order to ensure, that your brisket stays juicy and tender, you need to invest in a cut that has a profound degree of fat marbling. Getting yourself a prime cut will make sure that a day’s effort does not go to waste, since smoking a brisket is a long haul.
While you are sourcing the ingredients, also pay attention to the sides. A pairing of roast potatoes complements meat wonderfully. If you are looking to save time while prepping the potatoes, you can get the best potato slicer to scale your efficiency, and buy you time to focus on the start of the show.
The Smoker Must Be Hot
Achieving barbeque perfection is science. One that involves the expert management of heat and smoke. Since Brisket is a thick piece of meat, a long and slow cook is required to bring the internal temperature up for a perfectly pink interior. To make sure that the brisket cooks smoothly, heating up the smoker beforehand is essential. This is just like preheating the oven, so the meat actually smokes rather than boils inside the smoker.
Keep The Rub Original
There is a reason why the best barbeque joints have such an amazing brisket flavor: they rely on smoke rather than seasonings. Making a brisket in your backdoor smoker is not a reason to empty the seasonings cabinet. The best briskets are those that just have salt and black pepper as seasoning. If you are a connoisseur of little kick, then you can always spice things up with a touch of cayenne or paprika.
Don’t Rely On Temperature
Every meat lover knows the importance of touch when it comes to identifying whether the piece is cooked perfectly or not. Since every brisket is of different size and weight, there is no exact temperature reading that can guarantee you a pink center throughout. This is why you should rely more on touch rather than temperature.
When you hit the temperature of around 180 degrees Fahrenheit, take out the brisket and give it a feel. If it sponges back and feels like medium-rare, then it’s almost time to eat. Once you are done with the cook, stay patient as resting the meat for about forty-five minutes is pivotal. During the resting time, the meat fibers and connective tissue spread the juices all around evenly, making sure that the meat retains its moistness, once it is cut in.
The recipe I am sharing with you today is one that I adapted from one I found on Food 52 for Martha Stewart's One Pan Pasta. I just adore pasta myself, whereas my husband does not. (I know!) In any case I downsized it so that it feeds only two people.
I found myself with rather a large quantity of cherry tomatoes that I wanted to use up and I love using fresh basil in recipes when I have it, so this recipe was perfect.
One thing which I really loved about it was that everything cooks in one pan, even the pasta (linguini) . . . you just add the dry pasta and other ingredients, including water, and it cooks all-together in the pan.
No fuss, no muss . . . no faffing about with having to drain this or that . . . the water, tomatoes, etc. condense along with the starch from the cooking pasta to create a delicious sauce.
You don't even need to use boiling water. Just add it to the pan cold and let it come to the boil.
You do need to pay attention to it while it cooks however . . . to keep moving the pasta around so it doesn't stick to either the pan or well, together. (Anyone who has ever had long stranded pasta stick together in a large clump while cooking knows what I am talking about.)
You end up with an uncooked clump of stuck together pasta in the middle and cooked ends. In any case, if you keep your pasta moving, this won't happen. So do pay attention.
This is especially important as there is such a small amount of water used.
I had several kinds of cherry tomatoes . . . red and yellow . . . both incredibly sweet and ripe and delicious.
They went so well in this simple sauce, some of them broke down completely and others not so completely, but altogether most delicious.
There is a bit of heat in the sauce from the use of hot pepper flakes. Do adjust the amount required as per your own tastes . . . leave them out if you are not fond of too much heat at all.
I kept the amount of basil sprigs the same and that was the right thing to do . . . had I not done so, the flavour might have been lost all together. I adore the peppery taste of fresh basil, don't you?
The sauce is completed with thinly sliced onion and garlic, plenty of both . . .
This was really, really, REALLY nice! Not too spicy, not too mild . . . just right.
I thought the sauce beautiful, and I am not usually overly fond of tomato skins in my sauces . . . but in this they work. Providing a bit of texture and colour.
This was thoroughly enjoyed by myself . . . in face I dare say I might have even made a bit of a pig of myself.
Martha Stewart's One Pan Pasta
Yield: Serves 2
prep time: 10 Mcook time: 20 Mtotal time: 30 M
The original recipe was for four people. I have downsized it for two people. The pasta cooks completely in one pan, creating its own delicious sauce. You can be enjoying this from start to finish in less then 15 minutes.
Ingredients:
- 170g linquine pasta (6 ounces)
- 170g cherry tomatoes, halved (6 ounces)
- 1 small onion, peeled and cut into thin half moons
- 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
- 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
- 2 sprigs fresh basil, plus torn leaves to garnish
- 1 TBS extra virgin olive oil
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 520ml water (2 1/4 cups)
- Freshly grated parmesan cheese to serve
Instructions:
- Put the pasta, tomatoes, onion, garlic, red pepper flakes, basil sprigs, olive oil, 1 tsp salt and a pinch of pepper into a very large deep skillet with straight sides. The pasta must be able to lay flat in the pan.
- Add the water and then bring to the boil over high heat. Continue to boil, lifting and turning the pasta with a fork or a pair of tongs to prevent it from sticking together or to the bottom of the pan, and making sure it stays pretty much submerged in the liquid. You may need to add a bit more boiling water. Cook for approximately 9 minutes in this way until the pasta has cooked al dente and the liquid has almost evaporated.
- Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Divide between two pasta bowls and garnish with torn basil leaves. Serve with some extra olive oil and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
What is your favourite pasta sauce to eat? I don't think I have ever met one yet that I really didn't like.
I have been making my own breakfast cereal mix since the early 1980's. I started off with granola, inspired by my next door neighbour Mabel. She always made her own granola and inspired me to do the same. That simple recipe she shared with me way back when eventually morphed into my own version of the Perfect Granola Recipe. It is a beautiful mix of oats, nuts, flaked coconut and sweet maple. You can add your own fruit to it. Dried or fresh. I like to enjoy it with plain yogurt and date syrup.
We are huge muffin lovers in this house. I usually try to bake a batch every weekend so that we have them to enjoy for a few days. Some weeks I small batch, not wanting to waste any. This weekend finding ourselves in possession of quite a few over-ripe bananas I decided to bake a full batch of Banana muffins, knowing that I can simply free what we will not eat within a couple of days to enjoy somewhere down the road.
Normally this wouldn't happen. But Todd went for a walk the other day and bought some bananas at a shop, not realising of course that I had bananas on my grocery order for delivery. Not a problem really as I always use them up.
Sometimes I will bake Banana Bread and I have some really great recipes for a variety of Banana Breads on here. My absolute favourite one is this Sour Cream Banana Loaf. This is the one I always bake for the Mr when I cooked at Brenchley Manor.
I had to make sure that there was always one of those in the larder. He loved it toasted in the toaster oven and spread with cold butter for breakfast. I do love Banana Bread, but in all truth I don't always want to wait the hour or so that it takes to bake.
If you are looking for instant gratification, Banana Muffins are the way to go. They mix together rather quickly and bake lickety split..
You can usually be enjoying one of them within a half an hour, start to finish, and this is my favourite recipe for them.
It is my favourite recipe for a number of reasons. One with the ease at which I can throw them together and two because they always bake up moist and delicious, never dry and always beautifully flavoured.
If you are a purist, you can of course leave out the chocolate chips and walnuts, but we love them just as they are! You can of course use pecans if you would rather. We like the walnuts.
I always toast my nuts before using them when baking. It doesn't take much effort. Just a few minutes on a baking tray in a hot oven does the trick. Toasting your nuts just helps them to taste nuttier!
It enhances the nuttiness as it were . . . and chocolate chips. Chocolate and banana are a beautiful conbination. Think chocolate dipped frozen bananas here. The two flavours are quite symbiotic.
I was thinking as well, if you love peanut butter and banana sandwiches, you might like to use peanut butter chips in these instead of chocolate? What say you eh?
In any case I think these are pretty perfect just as they are. Soft, buttery, lightly spiced and moist.
Quick to make, quick to bake, incredibly moreish when it comes to enjoying them. I could easily eat two of these in one sitting, but I restrain myself.
If you are looking for the perfect Banana Muffin, you can't go too far wrong by using this recipe. I think quite possibly, its the absolute best.
Banana Muffins
Yield: 12 muffins
These are the perfect banana muffins. Moist, lightly spiced and filled with toasted nuts and chocolate chips (or not if that's what you prefer.)
Ingredients:
- 210 grams plain flour (1 1/2 cups)
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 3 large over-ripe bananas (about 1 1/2 cups)
- 86g melted butter (6 TBS)
- 145g soft light brown sugar (2/3 cup)
- 1 large free range egg, lightly beaten
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 TBS whole milk
- 60g chopped toasted walnut meats (1/2 cup)
- 90g semi sweet chocolate chips (1/2 cup)
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 220*C/425*F/ gas mark 7. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners.
- Whisk together the flour, soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Stir in the chocolate chips and nuts.
- Using an electric whisk beat the bananas in a bowl until mashed thoroughly. Whisk in the sugar, egg, vanilla, melted butter and milk, combining well together. Add the dry ingredients all at once and stir together just to combine. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin just to below the top of the paper liner.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 5 minutes then immediately lower the oven temperature to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4 without opening the oven door. Bake for a further 15 minutes until well risen, golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the centre of a muffin comes out clean.
- Allow to cool for five minutes, prior to carefully lifting out to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Store any leftovers in an airtight container for up to two days. These will also freeze well, properly wrapped, for up to three months. Thaw overnight prior to eating.
So what is it that makes a muffin the perfect muffin for you? What flavours do you enjoy? Next to Banana I love Bran. I need to find a way to combine the two don't you think?
Lemon Blueberry Turnovers . . . is there any more delicious flavour combination on the earth than the combination of lemon and blueberry??
I think not . . .
Combine that with flaky buttery puff pastry and you have a marriage made in heaven! This is the perfect time of year to be enjoying blueberry treats!
What is a turnover but a little pie, and these ones are so easy to make!
The filling is very simple to make and they cook in literally minutes, which makes them perfect for the summer months when you don't want to be heating up the kitchen!
I’m all for easy. How about you?
You only need a few ingredients as well. Puff pastry. Blueberries. Bueberry Jam. Lemon Curd.
Plus an egg wash to brush over and seal the edges.
The glaze is simple as well, just icing sugar and lemon juice . . . perfect.
I always have puff pastry in the freezer and lemon curd in the refrigerator. I also always have blueberry jam. I use Bonne Maman . . .
Wild Blueberry Jam . . . it reminds me of home.
I spent many a summer bent down low picking wild blueberries for my mother. Hot and painstaking work. They grow low to the ground.
It takes quite a few to fill a bucket, but their flavour is exemplary. Cultivated ones never quite come up to the flavour of the wild berry.
Mom never made jam with them, just pies. I used to make jam and pies and cakes, muffins, etc. You could usually buy big crates of wild blueberries at the farmers market.
They did cost a lot more than the ones you picked yourself, but . . . sometimes you know, its just worth it.
We grow our own cultivated blueberries in our garden, but when I saw frozen wild blueberries for sale on Ocado, I jumped at the chance to buy a bag.
They were not cheap but I knew their flavour would be amazing.
I sacrificed some of them to make these lush turnovers today. Mixed with a bit of wild blueberry jam, they made for an excellent filling.
I also added some lemon curd . . . because you know, blueberries and lemon . . . perfect.
This was the perfect blend of tart and sweet . . . perfect.
Although I did brush the squares of puff pastry well with an egg wash to help seal the edges and gild the top, I had blow outs . . . which upset me a bit . . . but then I realised . . .
The little blown out bits add to their beauty! And they get nice and sticky as well, which is why you really need to use baking paper and then scoop them off to a cooling rack pronto!
There is no mistaking that these are blueberry turnovers!
That combination of sweet/tart filling . . . that flaky buttery pastry . . . the sweet lemon glaze . . .
Doesn't this just look like a pair of sweet kissable blueberry filled lips? Mmmm . . . kiss . . . kiss!!
Lemon Blueberry Turnovers
Yield: 6 - 8 turnovers
Lemon and blueberry are one of the nicest combinations. These are quick and easy and oh-so-delicious!
Ingredients:
- 125g fresh or frozen blueberries (1 1/4 cup)
- 1 heaped dessert spoon of wild blueberry jam (about 1/3 cup)
- 6 - 8 TBS good quality lemon curd
- 1 sheet of puff pastry
- 1 large free range egg yolk beaten with 1 TBS cream
To glaze:
- 65g icing sugar (1/2 cup)
- 1 TBS lemon juice
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. Line a large baking sheet with baking paper. (Do not skip this step.)
- Stir the blueberries together with the blueberry jam.
- Unroll the puff pastry. Cut into 6 to 8 even squares (depending on the size of your sheet).
- Beat the egg yolk together with the cream. Brush the edges of each square with some of this.
- Place 1 TBS of lemon curd on one half of each pastry square. Top with about 2 TBS of the blueberry mixture. Fold the half without the filling over to cover the filling and press the edges sealed with the tines of a fork. Place onto the baking sheet leaving plenty of space between. Make a few steam vents in the top of each and brush the tops of the turnovers with the remaining egg wash.
- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until well risen and golden. Scoop off onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- Whisk together the icing sugar and lemon juice until smooth. Drizzle decoratively over top of the turnovers. Allow to set before serving.
- Best served on the day.
These are quite simply beautiful. To look at. To eat. To enjoy! Happy weekend!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
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