Although I am not vegetarian, I do not make a big effort to include meat in my diet. It is very rare that a huge piece of animal protein is the focus of my meal except for special occasions like Thanksgiving. Having said that, I do get a craving to cook certain food every so often and brisket has been on my radar for a few months. Purchasing a whole brisket is impractical given how long it’ll feed me (days and days and days). By some lucky chance, I spotted a great looking piece at the butcher the other day and it was cut to a very manageable size of 2kg. It came home with me. What did not come home with me was a tiny bag of onion powder. It got lost somewhere between the store and my home around 8-10pm. Let's hope I do not discover strange onion smell in my car when summer arrives.
That is still a very substantial piece of beef to cook but luckily brisket is best suited for slow cooking involving little active time on my part. Although I grew up on traditional Cantonese preparation of braised brisket with daikon, I wanted to something with a little more kick. I bookmarked smitten kitchen’s recipe for Tangy Spiced Brisket for the longest time and it was exactly what I had in mind. The list of ingredients is simple but it made me pause. Ketchup, Heinz chili sauce, brown sugar, onion powder, and garlic powder? Seriously? That’s a lot more shelf-stabled grocery items than I’m used to cooking with. However, the promise of sweet, tangy, and spicy melt-in-your-mouth brisket is too much to refuse so I forged ahead. I read through the ingredients of Heinz chili sauce and it is surprisingly similar to their ketchup. So I used the beloved sriracha and more ketchup instead. I do not have a slow cooker. Once again, my Le Creuset dutch oven proved it’s worthy of its weight in gold (oh my, that’s a lot of gold). I did not brown the meat and the sauce was easily made by simply throwing all ingredients in a bowl. The whole thing slow roasted in the oven for about 4 hours.
I prefer a smooth sauce so I used the immersion blender to blender everything to oblivion after de-fatting the sauce. On its own, the sauce certainly delivered its promise of sweet, tangy, and spicy though I would prefer a little less sweet and a little more spicy. The recipe recommends chilling the cooked brisket in the sauce overnight. This is an absolutely necessary step because the meat really soaked up the flavourful sauce during those extra resting time. When eaten together, the beefiness of brisket coated with sauce is just right. Needless to say, long hours of cooking rendered the brisket fork tender. Even as I took the photos, I was tempted to pick off bite-size pieces to munch on. This is the ultimate party dish to feed a crowd of hungry boys.
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