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Best Brisket? Bizarre Foods Host Andrew Zimmern Reveals Family Recipe

Over the last couple of years, I've smoked hundreds of pounds of meat in my backyard barbeque pits. One of the hardest cuts to learn how to do was brisket, so I would be lying if I said my first couple of those didn't come out a little dry. However, after taking time to listen to other backyard cooks and watch some helpful YouTube videos from Chuds BBQ and Mad Scientist BBQ, my results have improved drastically. Now, one other well-known chef has released his go-to brisket method, and it could be a game changer.

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When it comes to cooking whole beef brisket, everyone has their own way of going about the process. For me, I prefer to cook brisket in an offset smoker using oak or hickory. Usually, I'll trim and season it the night before using just salt, pepper, and garlic. I will then get up about 5 a.M. The next morning to start my fire before smoking the brisket at about 225 degrees for the remainder of the day. After it reaches about 170 degrees of internal temperature, I'll wrap it in butcher paper and set it back on the smoker until the internal temperature reaches 200 degrees. Once it's done, I'll take it off the pit and let it rest for about an hour before slicing.

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As much as I love my backyard smokers, they require a lot of work to prepare a single meal, so I've been looking for a great oven-baked brisket recipe for when I don't want to get up before dawn. If you are too, there is good news. American chef, writer, and Bizarre Foods star Andrew Zimmern recently unveiled his method for cooking the perfect brisket. According to Parade Magazine, the recipe is a longstanding tradition in the Zimmern family, which Andrew learned from his grandmother, with a few tweaks added over the years. (Luckily, that doesn't include any weird bugs or bizarre creations you might have seen on the Travel Channel.) Let's take a look at the process.

1 - Get the Right Cut of Meat

Zimmern says there are a couple of options when shopping for brisket. You can buy just the "flat," which is the leaner portion of a whole brisket, or you can buy the "point," which is the fattier, thicker portion of the brisket. Zimmern, like me, prefers to buy a whole brisket, and if you do as well, it is recommended that you purchase one no bigger than 15 pounds untrimmed.

2 - Let Your Brisket Come to Room Temperature

Just like cooking a nice ribeye steak, you want your brisket to set out a bit after removing it from the refrigerator. Zimmern says that if you don't, it will take much longer for the meat to become tender. This is also the perfect time to preheat your oven. Zimmern recommends a temperature of 275 degrees, but you can cook at 300 degrees if you want to speed up the cooking time.

3 - Fat is Good

Zimmern says that you should avoid trimming too much fat off, as the fat will melt into the brisket as it cooks, creating a very tasty end result. That said, you will still need to trim off some of the hard fat that won't render during the cooking process. I usually try to leave a fat cap of at least 1/4 inch.

4 - Preseason

When it comes to seasoning, there are a lot of options. Zimmern told Parade Magazine that he changes up his brisket methods about every ten years, but right now he's in his "herbes de Provence" era, which is a spice blend of dried rosemary, tarragon, marjoram, and thyme. If you don't have all those those herbs, Zimmern suggests using at least a mix of thyme, rosemary, a generous amount of kosher salt, and black pepper.

5 - Sear & Deglaze

After a good season, Zimmern instructs at-home cooks to sear their brisket in a roasting pan over two burners using high-temperature oil. After that, he recommends deglazing your cut of beef with a good helping of red wine.

6 - Into the Oven

The final step in the process is placing your brisket into your preheated oven at your desired temperature. The pan should be covered with foil and should remain in the oven until your brisket reaches an internal temperature of 180 degrees, which is much lower than a finished smoked brisket. This process can vary in length due to your chosen temperature and weight of brisket, but your cooking time will likely be an average of around 6 hours.

7 - Rest Before Slicing

Zimmern notes that you should let your brisket rest for at least one hour before serving. Longer is usually better, but after smelling brisket all day, an hour is normally all I can muster before diving into dinner. When slicing, it's important to mention that you should separate the flat and the point if you cooked a whole brisket. Both have differing protein strands and need to be sliced at different angles. I learned to slice brisket from the above video by Jeremy Yoder at Mad Scientist BBQ.

Overall, this doesn't look like a super complicated process, and you could probably skip the sear and deglaze if you really didn't want to put in that much effort. Personally, I can't wait to give this recipe a try, as it looks to be much easier than a 12-hour grilling session. Additionally, one won't have to worry about managing a fire or reflilling grill pellets (if your pellet grill guru). What do you think of Andrew Zimmern's brisket method?

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Whether you're in the mood for pulled pork, smoked chicken, smoked sausage, brisket, or any other part of a pig, chicken, or cow that can be cooked low and slow and slathered in a sweet and smokey barbecue sauce, you won't go wrong stopping by any one of these restaurants southern Indiana or western Kentucky to get your fix.

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E.Coli Warning Issued For Beef After It Was Shipped Nationwide

The US Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service just issued a public health alert over the weekend, warning customers who've purchased Great Omaha Ground Beef that there's a potential for their product to be contaminated with E. Coli. Read on for more details, including exactly which products the recall includes and what to do if you've purchased them.

Greater Omaha Ground Beef Recall

According to the USDA, the following ground beef products have been recalled after it was discovered that Great Omaha Packing Co. Had "inadvertently used a portion of the contaminated beef to produce ground beef products that they subsequently shipped into commerce." The contaminated beef had tested positive for E. Coli.

10-lb ground beef chub GROUND BEEF 85 FINE GRIND 10#/6 Lot Code: 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 and 33

5-lb. Ground beef chub GROUND BEEF GOHERF GB RIB BRISKET CHUCK CRAFT BURGER 5LB Lot code: 26

5-lb. Ground beef chub Greater Omaha 100% ALL NATURAL 5 LBS. GOURMET BLEND RIBBRISKETCHUCK

5-lb. Ground beef chubs GROUND BEEF GOHERF GB 81 FINE GRIND 5#/12 EXACT WEIGHT Lot code: 26

4 / 8-oz ground beef patties GROUND BEEF GOANG GB Patty 8OZ Homestyle Rib/Brisket/CH Lot code: 34

4 / 8-oz ground beef patties LOT 34 Ground Beef GB GOANG 75 PATTY PUCK 8 OZ Lot code: 34

4 / 7-oz ground beef patties LOT 34 GROUND BEEF GOANG Rib/Brisket/Chuck 7OZ HOMESTYLE Lot code: 34

6-oz ground beef patties LOT 34 GROUND BEEF GOANG GB PATTY 6 OZ HOMESTYLE RIB/BRISKET/CHUCK Lot code: 34

5-lb. Ground beef chub GROUND BEEF GOHERF GB 81 FINE GRIND 5LB EXACT WEIGHT Lot code: 26

6 / 5.33-oz ground beef patties Ground Beef GOHERF RIB BRISKET CHUCK 5.33oz HOMESTYLE Lot code: 27

E. Coli Warning

The Great Omaha ground beef that's affected by the recall were produced March 28, 2024, have a packaging date of "032824" and have a Use/Freeze by date of April 22, 2024. The affected products also have an establishment number of "EST. 960A", found inside the USDA mark of inspection.

While the recall is no longer active because they are no longer available for purchase, according to the FSIS. If you've purchased the product and have it in your fridge or freezer, dispose of it immediately and contact your healthcare provider if you're experiencing any adverse reactions.

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The Trimming Tip To Keep In Mind For The Best Tasting Beef Brisket

If you've tasted beef brisket you know how juicy, flavorful, and tender it can be, but if you've never cooked it yourself you might not know just how unlikely those results are given the piece of meat we're working with. It takes a practiced hand to turn the cow's dense pectoral muscles into something worthy of showcasing to friends and family. The secret is found in the tiny details like knowing how to properly salt and pepper your brisket before cooking and keeping the meat hovering in a razor-thin temperature range to avoid drying it out. An overlooked part of the process is properly trimming the brisket.

If you buy your brisket from a local butcher, there's a good chance that the professionals behind the counter will have already done this step for you, but that's not always the case. You'll know they haven't trimmed the brisket if there's still a hefty layer of fat coating the outside known as the fat cap. Remember that the brisket is a densely muscular area which means that, apart from the fat cap, the brisket is quite lean. That said, there's often too much fat in the fat cap to keep it whole. We need to trim it down without removing all of the flavorful fat. Balance is key here. How you plan to cook the brisket determines how much fat you remove, with braised brisket needing less fat than smoked brisket, for example.

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brisket fat cap - FeLopes/Shutterstock

To get more specific, smoked brisket needs ¼ to ⅓ inches of the fat cap left to cook properly. Any less and you'll end up with a dense, dry brick. Braised brisket is cooked in liquid so the risk of drying out isn't as pronounced so you won't want more than ¼ inch of fat left. You want to avoid grilling brisket altogether but there are other ways of cooking brisket. Use these two as a general guideline and consider how at-risk you are of making dry brisket when deciding how much fat to leave on.

Another important part of trimming brisket is identifying and removing the connective tissue known as silver skin. Brisket is full of connective tissue which, if handled poorly, will cause your meat to become unpleasantly tough and chewy. We cook brisket low and slow to render the connective tissue down and dissolve it gently. Even still, it's a good idea to cut the silver skin off when you see it. Just be careful not to get carried away lest you end up with a piece of meat half the original size.

The last thing to consider comes after you've trimmed the fat cap — do you cook the brisket fat side up or down? This is a surprisingly contentious issue in the brisket world and old hands likely have a strong opinion on which method is correct, but the debate seems to have swayed towards the fat side down in recent years.

Read the original article on Tasting Table

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