General Chat

Try this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisket

I WAS USED TO BUY A WHOLE ROLL OF BRISKET IT
WAS CLASSED AS THE CHEAPEST CUT AND IT WAS BY
FAR,SLOW COOK IT THEN SLICE THE WHOLE JOINT
THEN WRAP IT IN FOIL, WITH SOME COLD DRIPPING
FROM IT IN MEAL SIZE PORTIONS AND FREEZE IT FOR
UP TO A MONTH,DEFROST IT AND REHEAT ,
MIND YOU I WOULD HAVE ABOUT 6 TO 8 MEALS FOR
A TENNER WHEN IT WAS CHEAP

If we plan ahead, we'll slow oven cook it in a covered dish with a bit of water/stock then let it go cold.
The next day we'll slice off what we need and reheat in the oven submerged in a gravy.
Lovely and so tender!

Don't know how Tesco sold it as Topside.
It looks different..more grainy and does need a slow cook.

Yes we always had it cold and loved the top
Slice which had the lovely tasty jelly on top
It lasted us for quite a few days,with the stew later in week.

http://www.moorebutchers.co.uk/nutritional-value/

For a long time Tesco JS et al sold brisket as "Topside" ( !!!!! ) until they lost a case brought by the OFT and now label it as "roasting beef".

The major supermarkets tend not to hang their beef properly and a real butcher is a better place to go. These days real butchers do not charge any more than supermarkets on a like-for-like basis.

Brisket needs a long slow cook with some onions. Pot roasting is best. Keep the meat together with butcher's string - a real butcher will do this for you.

I myself like brisket cold sliced thinly.

The apprenticeship for a butcher used to be 4 years basic and another 2 for management stuff. It is very hard work. Tesco buy in trimmed carcasses from the slaughter house in bulk. These are divied up by "cutters" into the boxes for the supermarkets on a production line. Cutters get 6-12 weeks training.

OTOH demand for real trained butchers is rising sharply in London so I guess the art of cooking is not entirely dead.

Oh,brisket....
We still buy brisket here,or I do as I remember it very well from the war years.
It is beef ,as its a very versatile tasty cut.

My mother bought it a lot during the war As it went further than any other cut we could get in our ration.

She would take it off the bone ,then take of the layer of fat,then roll the meat and slow cook it.then press it in a basin with a heavy weight on.
She would render the fat down for our roast potatoes and with the bones she would make soup or stew.

I sometimes buy it now,but not on the bone then cook it in slow cooker....very tender

Yes, from the chest or lower (I forget what) of the animal. It is one of the 9 prime cuts of beef.

I think it is a cut of beef. I will have to google as I don't remember it having any ribs in it when I was young, but that was a long time ago.

I remember my mother cooking "brisket" when I was a child......... a big lump of meat, cooked so long it fell apart.

Our local club has meat raffles on Friday & Sunday; yesterday we won a prize... the last packet of meat. OH (as usual) said it was roadkill, I said it was a rib roast, but the guy running the raffle said it was brisket!

It weighs 1.7Kg, there are ribs in it........... and it's in the oven, smells wonderful.

My question is.............. what is brisket?

:-D