Montreal-Style Smoked Meat (Brisket)

Well, things have been slow here on the Stephanie and Dave Cook blog, mostly because we’ve been cooking more and writing less. We’ve missed several opportunities to talk about food we made, but just had to share this one: The Montreal Style Smoked Meat/Brisket we made for the holidays. As Cruiser (one of the other contributors to the effort) said, when you invite jews to cook for Christmas dinner, you might end up getting brisket on rye sandwiches and latkes!

This recipe came from The Mile End Cookbook, a book Dave’s mom was so excited about she got copies for everyone in both our families! Everything from it has been fabulous. Since the recipe is from the book, I can’t share it verbatim, but the book is definitely worth it.

The basic notion is this: Start with a whole, uncut brisket. Rub it with salt and spices, and cure it in the fridge for two weeks. Then, smoke it with hardwood chips in a smoker for 8 to 12 hours. Then, after letting it rest a day or more, steam it for several hours till it’s soft and tender. Slice carefully across the grain, and serve on rye bread with mustard. This basic description doesn’t nearly do justice to the divine flavor and texture we achieved with this recipe!

Most briskets you buy in the store are pre-trimmed to be only what is known as the ‘first cut’, and have the fattier upper section known as the ‘deckle’ removed. We went to the our nearest local butcher, Avedano’s Meat. They had whole briskets, and were happy to trim the fat to the thickness specified by the book. It started as a 15 lb cut, and 3 lbs of fat were removed to start.

Whole Raw Brisket with Spices

The curing mixture consists mostly of salt, garlic, pepper, and coriander, with the vital ‘pink curing salt #1’ added, which is a nitrate-salt mix that helps with the curing. We rubbed it all over the brisket then wrapped it in an oven bag and left it in the fridge for 10 days, turning it daily. The recipe called for 12 days, but christmas doesn’t move, no matter how late you start a project!

The day before we ate it, we smoked the brisket. Several pages of the book are dedicated to preparing the smoker. This was the first time we had ever smoked anything, and it took us several tries, several hours, and borrowing a family member’s smoker when the first one didn’t work. This being Dave, Stephanie, and family, we also spent an hour the night before with oak firewood from the ranch and several axes and mauls, making the wood chips.

When we were ready to smoke it, we added a second layer of spices to the outside of the meat, including lots of paprika. Then we tended the fire diligently for 9 hours, which due to the delays getting started meant that we were forced to sit around the fire and drink beer until 1 am when the meat hit the proper internal temperature. Oh no, Brer Fox, please don’t make me sit around a fire and drink beer!

Standing Around the Smoker

A Peek at the Meat!

When it finally came out, it looked glorious. A taste of it straight off the smoker, however, was incredibly salty! It definitely wasn’t quite done.

The first cut+deckle, after the smoking.

The next day, about 4 hours before Christmas dinner, we started steaming it, with instructions to stop when it was fork-tender. The interesting thing about steaming the brisket is that the steam came out smelling strongly of smoke, and the whole process mellowed the flavor a good bit and evened out the salt balance.

After steaming it came the carving, a surprisingly involved process due to the different directions of the meat grain between the deckle and the first cut. The book gives very precise, detailed instructions about this process as well. We laid it out on platters and served it with rye bread, mustard, sauerkraut, russian dressing, and fresh-made pickled horseradish (also from the book), and let everyone make their own sandwiches. The more creative among us began to experiment, leading to such creations as potato pancake tacos filled with smoked meat, sauerkraut, and creamed horseradish (yup, that was Dustin, Stephanie’s brother)!

Sliced and ready to eat!

Various open-faced sandwiches.

The Mile End Cookbook waxes poetic about the joy of food. One of my favorites is the bit describing the assembled sandwich. In talking about the fattier deckle part of the smoked brisket, they say, “A few slices of well-steamed deckle meat in a sandwich can make the difference between a merely satisfying lunch and a religious experience.” It was Christmas dinner, rather than lunch, but while there wasn’t much Jesus happening, judging from the fact that 16 people ate a 12 lb brisket there was definitely some meat worshiping going on.

We ate ALL of it!