The Great Southern Bloody Brisket Trendkill

Ingredients:

• 3-4 pound beef brisket
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 3 tablespoons oil
  
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1 tablespoon parsley
  
• 1 tablespoon oregano
• 2 cups beef broth
• 1 cup chili sauce
• 1 cup HP sauce
• 1 cup brown sugar

Cooking time:
Prep - 20 minutes
Cooking - 10 hours
Resting/reheating - 3-10 hours

Set list:
Pantera - Floods

Slow cooker time! I adore my crock pot. Not a week goes by where I don't use it, usually to whip up some fresh chili. I just let it cook while I go out and pursue my active lifestyle, and have five quarts of chili ready to chug down after a long, hot summer's day.

This brisket, however, is complicated in theory, but simple in practice. You might look at the cooking times listed and think to yourself "This man is CRAZY. I'm FAR TOO ACTIVE to make this recipe work! Let's get him! Into to the slave pit!" First off, you need to calm. Down. Secondly, making this brisket requires about a half hour of your time, total. The rest is just cooking and resting.

It's a very sweet recipe, and one that my mother adores, because if you omit the cayenne and black peppers, it has absolutely no kick to it in the slightest. Old people love that! Mom finds challenging things to be difficult. I've adapted this recipe from two others I've seen so that it produces a tangier sauce (thanks, HP!), and much more of it. I tend to serve this with mashed potatoes and use the sauce on them, but I've also replaced the potatoes with egg noodles - both come out great!

First, chop up the garlic and onions. Then heat your oil in a frying pan for about a minute on medium low. Add the garlic and onions and heat until you see tiny bubbles form around them. Stir then every few minutes, for about 10-15 minutes total, until they're nice and soft and cooked. While this is happening, get a big mixing bowl and combine the broth, HP sauce, chili sauce, and brown sugar. Stir the whole gross mix well - don't worry if the sugar doesn't combine well at first, it might need to sit for a minute or three first.

Add your remaining spices to the onion garlic mixture in the pan. Stir it all in well. I try to use fresh ingredients whenever I can, especially parsley, but if you don't have any, it's fine. I would say, though, a great tip is to grind dried herbs like oregano and parsley in your hands, over the pan - it makes a subtle difference in unlocking some of the flavor.

Set your slow cooker to low and place your brisket on the bottom. Don't worry if it seems a bit on the fatty side - we'll handle that bastard later. Cover the brisket with the pan contents in a nice layer. Take your gross sauce mix and gently pour it on top of the onion/garlic layer, taking care to not knock the layer off the brisket. Then cover.

Take a small speaker combo and keep it by the slow cooker. Play Pantera - Floods at a low volume on repeat, low enough that you only hear it when you're within a few feet of the cooker. This slow Texas groove will now stand guard over the pot, and help remind you to not open the cooker for any reason over the next ten hours - you have to let Dimebag rest in peace. If you do all this before you go to bed at night, you'll be ready for the next, quite simple stage in the morning.

Ten hours later, your house should smell amazing, and the brisket will be cooked. Using a spatula and wooden spoon, carefully remove the brisket from the cooker, leaving the remaining sauce. It should be so juicy, so artfully cooked that you could pull it apart with a fork. I love you, crock pot! MY LIFE FOR YOU!

Place the brisket on a cutting board and use a spoon or knife to gently scrape off, along the grain of the meat, any fat that you may had noticed earlier. Place the brisket in an oven safe dish, add the sauce, and cover. Place it in the refrigerator for several hours - if you put it in before work, you'll be set for when you get home, though that probably depends on your occupation. Who even knows what sort of hours a chimney sweep works these days. What have they ever done for US? Not jack shit, probably.

An hour or so before you want to serve, preheat your oven for 350 degrees. Take the dish out of the fridge and spoon out any fat that has pooled around the edges. Place the brisket back on the cutting board and cut it to your liking - one inch slices work for me. Whisk the remaining sauce, place the brisket slices back in the dish, and heat for about a half hour, until the edges are boiling. Remove and serve!



We did it!