Beef Brisket in Slow Cooker (Poitrine de Boeuf à la Mijoteuse)

I do have various projects which have had enough progress to write about them - soon!

But first I wanted to post (document?) the beef brisket I made on New Year's Day.

It's actually a recipe stolen borrowed from a friend.  I've had it several times and it pretty much destroys everything in its path.  I quote my friend "people tend to go wild over it."  I certainly have, so I made it.

Let's begin, shall we?

Very few ingredients:

• 1 beef brisket that will fit in your slow cooker/crock pot/mijoteuse (Mine was about 3.3 lbs)
• A couple cloves of whole garlic
• 1 cup of soy sauce
• 1 cup of beef broth/stock (homemade is probably best - otherwise use the lowest sodium commercial broth you can get...read below)
• Freshly ground pepper, as much as you'd like.  I probably put in a teaspoon or so.

Here we have the ingredients lined up for action.

You will notice I also put in some cayenne pepper...just because.

My final juice came out a bit salty, not like the version(s) I have eaten before.  So proceed with some caution on your soy and stock.

Here's our wonderful brisket endormi (sleeping) in the crock pot before the excitement starts.

The meat should be fat side up in the pot.

Put the ingredients in the pot.

The liquid should come halfway up the meat.  "The meat should not be submerged" says my emailed recipe.  "If you submerge the meat, the universe will end!"

Kidding.  I just added that last part.

Cook le boeuf for 8-10 hours on low.  I probably could have let mine go a bit longer than 8 hours...it was tender but not falling apart.  Use your own judgement.

After the meat is cooked, trim off the fat.  My brisket was pricey and was pretty well trimmed to start with.  I didn't have much to trim off at this point.

Use a spoon or fat separator to remove the fat from the liquid.

You can see I used my trusty separator to pour the fat into my grease pit.  I keep a jar in the refrigerator for just this purpose.  Don't pour grease and oil down your kitchen drain!

When the pit gets full, just dispose of it in the trash.  Since it's in a glass jar, it will outlive everything on earth.

Slice the meat.

I sliced it into large hunks...I think my friend slices hers smaller.  Here again you can use your own judgement.

Put the sliced meat back into the cooker for 30 minutes or so.  Basically as long as you can stand it.  It will be looking pretty good at this point.

Ta da.

New Year's dinner featuring the slow-cooked brisket, collard greens, black-eyed peas with tomatoes, and mashed potatoes with mascarpone cheese and celery root.  That's the meat juice on the potatoes.  MMMmmmmm.

That's eating!