Thursday, January 17, 2013

Winter Comfort Food: BBQ Brisket

After our terrific hot pot dinner we headed out into the cold to do our weekly grocery shopping and to get something to use with a homemade BBQ sauce a friend had given us for the holidays. Initially we thought BBQ chicken, but when we found out the BBQ sauce had a dark beer base we decided a brisket was the way to go. Our experience cooking brisket only includes a terrific Vietnamese beef noodle soup called Bún bò Huế and slow roasted in the oven for over 12 hours. We normally would fire up the grill, but it was ungodly cold out and we wanted to do something with a lot less effort. So we broke out our slow cooker and slap that brisket in it for 12 hours! The results was a delicious, tender and flavorful brisket that was maybe 30 minutes effort tops. 

We started by rubbing the brisket with a mix of typical BBQ dry rub spices such as chili power, cumin and cayenne. Then we simply placed the rubbed brisket in the slow cooker, poured the BBQ sauce over the brisket, turned on the crockpot slow cooker, walked away, made a cocktail, watched the DVD Moonrise Kingdom, went to bed and woke up the next morning to the most delicious smell. It's kind of strange to smell roasted meat first thing in the morning, but something we could easily get used to. Since we started the cooker around midnight, the brisket was ready to eat by lunchtime the next day, but ended up having it for dinner, and as we finished the meal we were left wondering why we don't bust out the slow cooker more often because this terrific dinner was ridiculously easy. 

Mr Finicky's Spicy BBQ Sauce
Grinding Spice Rub
Brisket Slow Cook
Rubbing the Brisket
Marinated Brisket
Slow Cooker
12 Hours Later

Mike slapped his brisket on a bun and topped it with coleslaw, whereas I simply plated my brisket, initially thinking I won't be able to finish that plate of food, but ate it all up (slightly burnt brussel sprouts and all)!

His & Hers
Brisket Sandwich