I was asked about the Father's Day cook over the weekend...well, here are the pics to prove it!
It was not an optimal day for cooking - it rained off and on.
But - not to be deterred, I set up shop in my garage, and left the door open, with the back door propped open to have a draft, and send the smoke out.
I decided to do the Sweet Onion Brisket of Beef Carbonnade - a new brisket recipe. With it I decided to the Cheesy Dutch Oven Potatoes, and something called "Crusted Arabian Cheese Bread."
So I had never trimmed a brisket before, and with a full packer, there was a significant amount of fat! So I took my knife, and went to town!
I also cut it in half and placed the whole thing in my 14 inch oven.
There is still quite a bit of fat, especially on the thick end, but it was a TON less.
After that, I put on the spices, and sliced some onions, and put them over it.
I had some help - and my helper put on a red bell pepper, a yellow bell pepper, 6 celery stalks, and about a pound of mushrooms cut up.
So after all of this, I poured on the sauce - made of beef broth, ginger ale, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, and a few other things I can't remember off the top of my head...(recipe posted soon!) Here's the sauce going on...
So I put that on to cook for 5 hours - the long haul! A brisket like this is really helped by the low and slow.
Well, a few hours later, I put started some bread dough, and let it rise. (Don't have a pic of that - gotta start remembering earlier!)
Then I washed/cut about 5 pounds of potatoes and 2 onions with a mandolin slicer - I was SOOOOO happy I had one!
Then I took an entire package of bacon and started browning it in a dutch oven.
Once that got all good and browned up, I put in the potatoes and onions, put in some good black pepper and some salt, and stirred it all up!
Those got to sit on some good coals for an hour or so.
While THOSE were cooking...
I took the bread dough and put it into a 12 inch dutch oven. Now the recipe says to use a 14 inch, but I had my 14 inch used, so I decided to make it a bit thicker. You just press the dough into the bottom of the oven. Then I put the topping on - a mix of butter, oregano, paprika, chopped onions, garlic salt, and cheese.
It cooked for about 20 minutes, rotating the lid every few minutes.
Side note - my table only fits three 12 inchers side by side, so I had to stack!
About 5 minutes before the bread was done, I opened up the potatoes and dumped in a boat-load of cheese...mmm....
Anyway, here's the results of the cook.
The bread:
The top was SLIGHTLY too brown, and the bottom was about the same, but it was FANTASTIC. The tastes were great.
Here's the potatoes:
And finally, the brisket!
And a pic of the pan juices - OHHHH how many juices there were!
Side note - possibly the best part of the cook was the mushrooms. They were AMAZING.
It was good, and there are STILL leftovers, two days later!
Hope you enjoy!