National Brisket Day!

BBQ is a big part of what we do here at Wildwood, so of course we jumped at the chance to celebrate National Brisket Day which was last Saturday.  Not that we need a special occasion to eat meat of any kind, but it was nice to mark the holiday with a big, juicy brisket.


Beef brisket is a perfect cut of meat to braise, since it's loaded with connective tissue that has to be broken down in order for the meat to get nice and tender.  It does have a nice, thick layer of fat on top so leaving a bit of that on will also help moisten the beef as it slowly cooks.

See shiny layer of lovely fat.

After trimming a bit.

After rubbing the meat with a dry rub (cumin, smoked paprika, salt, black pepper, onion powder) and putting garlic in the fat pockets, we seared off the brisket on all sides and laid it on a bed of sliced onions, red bell peppers and red and green jalapenos:

The we poured in some heated beef stock into the pan, then let it go slow and low in a 180 degree oven for 12 hours:

Here's the finished product.  Unfortunately we were so busy serving up this gorgeous piece of meat that we didn't get a chance to snap pics of a plate.  Just take our word for it that it was melt-in-your-mouth tender and certainly did justice to National Brisket Day!!

This is a dish you can easily make at home- brisket is an inexpensive cut of meat, and you can use whatever spices you like to season the meat to suit your taste.  Garlic powder, chili powder, ground coriander..it will all work.  Play around with seasonings each time you make it and find the best combination for you- cooking should be about experimenting and making food your own!  We love onions and peppers but if you'd like to use carrots, celery and onion that is a classic mirepoix.  You're not going to eat the vegetables- their purpose is to flavor all of the beautiful cooking liquid which, after the meat is done, you can strain, cool, then remove the fat from and use as gravy.

Ok, are you hungry yet?!  We are!  We'll keep you posted on what else we have going on in our Wildwood Test Kitchen, and we'd love to hear about what you've been cooking up lately.  Tell us in the comments section!