So what does this have to do with the reader mail? Easy – today’s comment and question comes from Tammy (apparently no “awesome” in her signature) sunny California. She points out that the Basic Chicken For Dipping also reheats just fine after freezing (this I did not know!). She also wonders just how many pieces of that insanely good dipped chicken she should make for guests. A good rule of thumb here is to never ever (eeeeever) come up short. The average joe will eat two pieces of chicken as part of a meal. So put on three per person – this gives you more for the folks that crave another piece (this is crave-worthy chicken!) and if you do have any extra its no chore at all for you to heat the leftovers up the next day and indulge again.
Just remember that you want the dip to be hot, and you dont want to dip your chicken pieces until they are about to hit the plate. If you are serving informally, put the platter of chicken out beside some sort of vessel containing the hot dip, and instruct your guests on the process. Don’t forget to provide tongs! They can dip each piece as they take it, they’ll have a bit of fun, you’ll look like a star, and the leftovers will be in their pristine and un-dipped state for easy reheating the next day.

Win, win, and win. You’re welcome.

Your rubs are great, but sometimes the brown sugar in the mixes can clog up. If you want rubs with no lumps, tell people to add the brown sugar and one of the salt ingredients first, and mix those. The salt will suck moisture out of the sugar and let it stay nice and smooth. Then add all the other ingredients and you will get a nice blend with no sugar bumps.

George, you are aptly named. I tried this out and it works exactly as advertised … in fact, it was awesome. I will be updating the order of ingredients and the instructions to both the pork and chicken rubs. You earn the first ever “True North BBQ Awesome Reader Of The Week” award. Wear it well, my friend, wear it well.

With that in mind, my current project it so make insanely good meatballs specifically for sandwiches. This is the recipe as it stands so far – in a break from the tradition here I am posting the “work in progress” before deeming it 100% complete. If you were so inclined, feel free to give it a whirl and dump in some feedback before I commit this to its final form. This weekend I will repost this with any changes and with the requisite silly pictures. If you want to have your say, do it before then.

Quick and dirty instructions after the jump!
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For the meatballs:

1 kg ground beef
500 g ground pork
3 eggs
1 bunch of flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 cup water
1 cup crumbs
1 cup finely grated romano cheese
1 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

(I hope I don’t have to remind you that this is regular ground chuck and regular ground pork – none of this “lean” tomfoolery, please)

Mix all of this well (with your hands, preferably) in a big bowl. Shape into golf-ball sized meatballs. You want the size nice and even, and you should get between 44 and 48 meatballs. Put them on a sheet tray or in a VERY shallow roasting pan and roast them with a wood or charcoal fire at around 190 – 205 degrees C (that is 375 – 400 F and indirect heat, of course) for 45 minutes. Turn them once, after the first 25 minutes. Put them aside.

In a big roasting pan or baking dish, heat up about 2 big spoonfuls of the drippings you got from roasting the meatballs. Add to that:

1 big spanish onion, finely chopped
2 large carrots grated

Saute that for about 5 mintues until the carrot is totally soft and the onions start to get some colour. Add in:

1/4 cup garlic, roughly chopped
1/2 head flat leaf parsley chopped

Saute that for about 2 minutes, then add:

2 cans san marzano crushed tomatoes
2 cups water
2 tsp allspice
1 cinnamon stick
4 bay leaves
1 tsp ancho chili powder

Put that back into your charcoal or wood cooker and let it cook down for about 45 minutes. Taste, and adjust with salt and pepper if needed. Put the meatballs into the dish, make sure they are covered with sauce, cover the dish tightly with foil and let it sit in the cooker for 30 minutes more.

And, done. Serve on soft buns with a bit more romano cheese and a bit more fresh parsley to finish. I like to use the little elongated dinner rolls – they hold exactly 2 meatballs for a little four-bite sandwich that is easy to eat and hold if you have a beer in your other hand.

Give it a shot. Let me know. And check back on the weekend for the final treatment. See you then!

With that out of the way, let’s run this thing down. The recipes in play here are the True North Chicken Rub, the Basic Chicken For Dipping, and the Diamondstar Halo dipping sauce. If you are not familiar with and of these now is the time to follow the links and check them out. The timeline below is what I consider ideal – yes, sometimes you have to compress things time-wise, I get that. But for this one … make the effort to start it a full day early. The result is worth the extra hassle of planning your meal 24 hours in advance. Trust me.

24 HOURS AHEAD

Make sure you have enough of the True North Chicken Rub

Make a batch of Diamondstar Halo sauce

While that cools, toss your chicken pieces with the rub

Put the sauce and the tossed chicken into the fridge. Wash your hands. And wait for tomorrow.

90 MINUTES BEFORE EATING

Take the chicken out of the fridge. Dredge the chicken pieces with flour and put them on a rack to rest for 30 minutes. Pre-heat your oven / barbeque pit / roaster / whatever to 175 degrees C (350 Fahrenheit if you are being retro).

Strain your sauce – you want to get the bits of sage and rosemary out of there now. They have done their work, from this point on all they can do is get bitter from being reheated. The easiest way to do this is to strain it right into the pot you are going to heat it up in.

60 MINUTES BEFORE EATING

Put the chicken (on a rack) in your cooker of choice and let ‘er rip. If you remember to do so, turn the chicken once at the 30 minute mark.

5 MINUTES BEFORE EATING

Heat the sauce. You don’t want it to boil (that would be bad bad bad) but you want to get it very hot.

ZERO HOUR

Pull out the chicken. As you serve it, dunk each piece completely in the sauce. Just a quick in and out, you want to coat it, not to soak it. Let the extra drip off for a couple of seconds (as long as it takes to say “drip drip drip” is probably ideal) and plate it up. Serve it on a pile of rice if you are eating indoors (the sauce dripping into the rice is heaven) or just plate it beside a pile of really good plain potato chips or nacho chips if you are feeling casual.

Eat. With your fingers. Then get ready to be dipping more pieces, because people are going to want seconds. And thirds. Keep the sauce hot and ready to go until you are sure everyone is done. And remember – only dip pieces as you are about to serve them.

THE AFTERMATH

This is one of those deals where it is just as easy to make a lot as a little. So make a lot. Let any leftover chicken pieces cool completely and store them in the fridge. Let the sauce cool completely and put it back in its jar and stick that in the fridge too. When you want another meal, heat however much chicken you want in an oven (not a microwave) at 175C/350F for about 20 minutes loosely wrapped in foil, then open the foil and heat for 10 minutes more. Heat the sauce up and once again just dip the pieces you are about to eat. The sauce can re-cool and re-store and re-heat as many times as you require.

Now. Stop reading and eat some chicken. When you are done I would appreciate it if you take a moment and let me know what you think.

Enjoy.

If you are unsure, then do your first batch in the oven – this works really well in the oven. Everyone can play on this one, and you will be glad you did. Besides the aforementioned dipping, this chicken is a great thing to have in your back pocket as a go-to technique for any time you need a big mound of crispy tasty crunchy juicy bird.

Total prep time is about 10 minutes, cooking time is about one hour. Ready? Let’s go.
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If you already have a batch of my True North Chicken Rub mixed up, then both the number of ingredients and the amount of prep time are trivial. There is only one item that you might not be familiar with, and it’s both easy to find and will be a great addition to your pantry if you haven’t used it before. See the ingredients notes for details. Beyond that, the list is simple:

INGREDIENTS:

Chicken pieces (thighs and drumsticks, in whatever combination you like) – skin on, bone in (see “Chicken Note” below)
True North Chicken Rub
Flour (unbleached is best, but no worries if all you have is the dreaded “supermarket white” )
Chickpea Flour (see “Chickpea Flour Note” below)

Chicken Note: Please please please don’t screw around with skinless or boneless crap here. Bone-in chicken is moister, more flavourful, and more fun to eat. I am sure that someday someone will find an actual use for boneless skinless chicken breasts, but it probably wont be as a food item. This recipe is built around flavour, so use some chicken that actually has some. As far as amounts go, use as much as you need. I make tons because they leftovers heat up REALLY well.

Chickpea Flour Note: You can get this at virtually any bulk foods, health food, or upscale foods store. If you haven’t used this before, you are really missing out. It has more protein that wheat flour, no gluten, and when you use it for coating or dredging or dusting it adds a subtle richness of flavour that will really surprise you. Once you see how this works out I am betting you start using this stuff with some serious regularity.

So. With the ingredients ready and assembled, start by getting the rub on the chicken. The best way to do this is to get a big plastic bag or a good size plastic container with a lid – whichever you choose, you want it big enough to hold three or four pieces of the chicken with room to spare for tumbling and bashing around. In batches of three or four pieces, toss the chicken into your container along with about a tablespoon of the rub, close it up, and toss it with some vigor. You can modify the amount of rub as you see fit, but the “one tablespoon to three or four pieces” rule works pretty well for me. The chicken should have about this much rub on it when you are done (and yes, this is probably the single most useful photo on the entire web site):

Once you have all of your chicken suitably coated with the rub, you should put into a plastic bag or container and put it in the fridge for an entire day. If you have to cook it right away you can, but letting it sit makes a world of difference.

After the chicken sits and the rub does its thing, you are ready to dredge. Once again you want to use a plastic bag you can seal up or a big container with a lid. and once again you want to make sure there is room for three or four pieces to tumble freely. In the bag or tub mix 2 parts regular flour with 1 part chickpea flour. Mix it well. As far as quantity, you just need to make sure you have enough to coat all your chicken completely – start with a cup of flour and a half cup of chickpea and of you need more as you go, you can add as needed.

Dump three or four hunks of chicken into the flour, close up the bag/container/whatever, and give it a good shake. Fish those pieces out when they are coated, put them on a rack, and do the next few pieces. Repeat until done. Your coated chicken should look about like this:

A nice even coating, but not caked on. The natural moisture of the skin and the rub and the flour should all conspire to give you just the right amount automatically. Let the chicken sit on the rack for a half hour or so for the flour to bind up a bit. While the chicken sits you can either build your charcoal fire or preheat your oven. You want your temperature to be 175 degrees C (that’s 350 Fahrenheit if that is how you roll). When your pit / oven / whatever is ready and settled at 350, put the chicken in on the rack with something underneath to catch drips, shut the lid/door/hatch, and let the heat do it’s work. Remember, you have to cook this on a rack, not flat on a sheet or a pan, or it’s just not going to work.

TOTALLY OPTIONAL STEP: After 30 minutes, you can turn the chicken. Turning it once halfway through give you a more evenly awesome crust. But if for some reason you can’t do this, don’t panic. Your chicken will still be fine.

Either way, after 60 minutes, you are done. That’s it. One hour. And you should end up with a load of crispy juicy chicken that looks like this:

In case you were wondering, I cooked mine on a Big Green Egg with the platesetter in to diffuse the heat. And yes, the chicken is as insanely awesome as it looks. And yes, if you do it in the oven it will still look this good, Pull it out and dip each piece into the Diamondstar Halo sauce as you are about to serve it for hot sticky sweet spicy dipped goodness. Or, if you want, you can just eat it plain. Either way, this chicken will blow your mind.

Next time, we will walk through the whole process from beginning to end: The sauce, the chicken, and the dip. Until then, happy chickening!

Stay tuned.

If you were wondering, no, you don’t have to play the song while you cook this. But it doesn’t hurt, either. Marc Bolan was a genius.

So – you may not know that “dipped” is a classic way to serve fried or roasted chicken. And I don’t mean dipped in little fork-bites at the table (a la Swiss Pigeon), i mean dipped as whole pieces in sauce when those pieces are just hot out of the oil or the oven. If you have never had chicken this way – a method that was inspiration for the first “buffalo wings” – then you are missing out on one of the great taste explosions of our time. But don’t stop there – and don’t shy away from making this if you aren’t planning on piece-cooked chicken. I have been dunking and/or exposing all sorts of things to this little concoction, and when push comes to shove you can pair this with pretty much any meat that is served hot and has any sort of salt in it’s seasoning profile.

Best of all, this is super simple. It has a a mere four ingredients (if you are like me and count this as one ingredient) and takes 5 minutes to make. Full details, some ideas on use, and random ranting after the jump.

Let’s get saucy!
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To make this sweet and filthy little sauce, you need:

1 cup of white wine vinegar*
8 tablespoons of True North BBQ Chicken Rub
1 cup of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
1 and 1/3 cup of honey

*A Quick Note About Vinegar: Don’t use cheap-ass store-brand wine vinegar here. Wine vinegars in general, and especially whites, are dependent on the quality of wine they are brewed from. The better the vinegar you start with here, the better your result.

So – grab a saucepan that is twice as large as needed to actually hold the total ingredients. Dump in the vinegar, put it on the stove, and bring the vinegar to a boil. When it comes to a full boil turn the heat down to the lowest setting, add the hot sauce, and whisk in the spice rub. Whisk it until all of the non-herb ingredients are dissolved, and then remove the pan from the heat. Immediately whisk in the honey, adding it in a nice even stream as you mix.

And that, as they say, is it. The whole shebang. Let the sauce cool (this is a crucial step, the flavours don’t balance correctly right away), put it in a jar and store it in the fridge for at least one day if you can. After the “day of rest” strain it (you want to get the random bits of rosemary out now) and it is are ready to go. This keeps for a couple of months in the fridge if you put it in a tightly-lidded jar – just give it a good shake before you use it.

When you use this to dip fresh cooked items like fried chicken, barbeque chicken or roasted chicken make sure the sauce is hot before you dip – not boiling, but close. Steaming hot sauce, hot food item, one quick dip. Serve immediately.

Other things I have dipped in this with drool-inducing results:

Deep fried slices of thick (about the thickness of your thumb) bologna
Pan fried slices of regular supermarket bologna
Pan fried thick slices from a cooked ham

All of those items were then placed in between two pieces of toast for a hot dip sandwich. I have also spooned a bit of this sauce onto hot sliced brisket on a bun, I have fried up pulled pork to crisp-edge carnitas in this, and dipped bacon fresh off the griddle before making a bacon-n-egg sandwich.

Hell, I’ve even taken out the lemon (and any vinegar or water you might use) from hollandaise and substituted two or three tablespoons of this. Which makes a hell of a benedict, you betcha.

Go to it. You won’t be sorry you spent the five minutes on making this … or the next week and a half finding things to put it on.

So – the main deal here is that this chili uses already cooked beef – either a traditionally smoked brisket or the world-famous True North Emergency Brisket – to build the basic beef flavour without having to sit there and brown the chunks of beef all afternoon before you even get started. And – in my humble and pretty-much-correct opinion – you get a bigger and better beef flavour this way than any traditional browning method. The flavour experience is more “warm” than “flaming hot” but the heat does sneak up on you, so don’t poo-poo this as some sort of gutless white-bread wet-lettuce chili. After a full bowl you will have a nice roast going on. Promise.

No pictures in this one, because once you get the stuff in the pot it pretty much looks all the same. Full details and some notes about the ingredients (there is one that you might not be able to find) after the jump.

Ready for launch!
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This chili has a noticeably complex flavour, and as such uses a pretty (excuse the pun) beefy ingredient list. I’ve broken it into sections to keep things generally manageable. Read through the whole mess to make sure you see all of the ingredients in both of the first two stages before you start.

STAGE ONE:

Approximately 1.5 kg (3 – 4 pounds if that is the way you roll) of cooked brisket
3 large canned chipotle peppers (the kind packed in adobo sauce)
1 large can crushed tomatoes (see “Tomato note” below)
1 can tomato paste
1 can original Ro-Tel (if you can’t get this, see “Ro-tel note” below)
1 bottle beer, a darker ale would be ideal
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup any good ol’ Frank’s/Durkee hot sauce (see “Hot sauce note” below)

Tomato Note: I can my own tomatoes out of the garden each year, and I used two 500 ml jars. But that doesn’t really come out to a full liter because of headspace, so if you use the typical large can of crushed tomatoes (798 ml or 27 fluid ounces) you will be just fine.

Hot Sauce Note: I use Franks because I think it has a nice clean flavour profile and a mellow and even heat. If you have a favourite, feel free to substitute, but remember that the amounts of other spices here are based on the heat of Franks. You may need to experiment if you are swapping out sauces.

Ro-tel Note: Ro-tel is awesome, and you may laugh at one little can in a big pot like this, but it really makes this come alive. However … if you live in the Great White North you may have a bitch of a time getting this. If you can’t get the Ro-tel, don’t panic. We can fake it by adding add some extra sweet peppers and a jalapeño in stage 2. It won’t be quite as awesome, but it will still be very good.

Cut the brisket in to small cubes – about the width of your thumbnail is good. Finely chop the chipotles. Put a large and heavy dutch oven on the stove and add the cubed beef, the chopped chipotles (and the adobo that was stuck to them!) and the rest of the stage one ingredients. Put the heat to medium, and stir the mix a few times as it comes up to heat (do not boil!) and once it is steaming, turn the heat down to low-medium-low and put the lid on. Simmer covered for 2 hours.

STAGE TWO:

A bit of olive oil
1 medium onion
6 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon course-ground black pepper
2 tablespoons cumin
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon salt
3 tablespoons chili powder (ancho if you can get it)
1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning (if you can get it, if not you can leave it out)
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon oregano

If you couldn’t get Ro-tel:
1 large green bell pepper
1 jalapeño

In a nice big skillet, heat the olive oil. Dice the onion and chop the garlic, fine but not down to a mince. Add the onion and garlic to the heated oil and sweat it over low heat for about 10 minutes. And I mean sweat. Not sauté, not fry. You don’t want to brown the garlic. If you couldn’t get the Ro-tel, seed both peppers, dice the bell and mince the jalapeño – add them to the skillet at the same time as the onions and garlic and sweat them down too. When the onions and garlic are soft and translucent, add the rest of the spices. Stir over low heat until the spices bloom (your nose will tell you, don’t worry).

Add the onion/garlic/spice mixture to the main pot. Stir well. Cover and simmer for two and a half more hours.

STAGE THREE:

1 large red bell pepper

Dice pepper. Remove the lid, add diced pepper, stir well, and simmer for 30 minutes more to concentrate the flavour and thicken it slightly. Eat steaming hot.

This makes a nice big pot, and you don’t have to eat it all right away. If you are having the gang over you can cover the pot and hold on the stove over low heat for hours. If you are just cooking for yourself, keep a couple of big portions of the leftovers in the fridge and freeze the rest. This freezes amazingly well in single portion containers.

What is up with cooking to 195 degrees? I thought beef was well done at 160 and after that was a burnt mess?

Yes, those would be accurate statements – for regular old beef for the masses. We are talking about something special here – a cut of meat that has huge ropes of connective tissue running all through it. That connective tissue makes the meat tough – really tough. But, at about 175 degrees fahrenheit, something interesting happens: The collagen in that connective tissue turns into gylcerine, and the fat that surrounds it starts to render into tallow. The combination of glycerine and tallow running through the meat is the magic combination that turns an otherwise leathery chunk of cow into a butter-tender hunk of meat that has more beef flavour than anything you will have in any other way. Getting the meat to this temperature for as long as possible is what lets you violate the universal rule of beef – the tougher the meat, the tastier. In this case the toughest cut of meat on the whole animal retains every bit of its flavour but becomes as tender as the best prime rib.

What is really interesting is that the process of collagen-to-glycerine uses up literally all of the heat energy that you are pumping into the beef mass – at that point in time, there is no energy going into the cooking process at all, and the internal temperature of the meat will “stall” here, sitting at 175-180 degrees for a startlingly long time and sometimes even dropping down despite the heat input remaining constant. This is good, the longer you keep it here the better. Once it crosses this plateau the temperature will run up to 195 pretty quickly, so using a remote thermometer probe is a must.

The only reason we take it to 195, if you were wondering, is to make sure that all of the places where there are little fat pockets inside – which can be somewhat insulated – have a chance to get the full benefit of the process.

So why isn’t all dried out like my mom’s pot roast?

It’s because we protected the meat. First we put a sear on the outside to seal in the moisture, and then we took it through the rest of the roasting process at a temperature that was low enough that we didn’t drive the moisture past this barrier. Low and slow, kids, low and slow. Note that if you are doing the brisket in a real barbeque pit and cooking it with smoke, you dont need the searing step. The natural smoke ring protects the moisture in the same way.

So why do I need the “whole” brisket? What is wrong with the piece that they sell at the supermarket?

The fact that they sell it at the supermarket is the first thing that is wrong with it. Besides giving you the wrong cut, there is a very good chance that they are injecting it full of salt water before they sell it to you. Look for the key word “seasoned” on the sticker. This is not meat you want to cook, and not and industry that you want to support.

However, and to be less preachy about it, you need the full brisket cut (both the point and the flat) because the interface between them is where the biggest share of the above-mentioned collagen is hiding. You need that layer, and you need it to be attached to the two other pieces of meat. This is key.

So quit arguing and get yourself a proper butcher already!

Where the hell am I going to find a butcher?

Oh, I don’t know, maybe you could search the freaking internet? Sheesh.

What am I going to do with all this meat?

Make friends with your neighbours – you never know when you are going to need a favour, and buying some goodwill with free brisket on a bun never hurt in that regard. After that, slice up some for your own sandwiches and freeze it into individual servings. And take at least a kilo and a half (three pounds for you colonial types) and make it into chili. And yes, I will give you a recipe.

Do you cook it fat up or fat down? Does it matter?

Wow! A good question! Actually, in the long run it doesn’t matter all that much for the overall taste. If you can, cook it fat up so that the fat renders off more evenly and you get a better crust on top without washing all of your rub away. Do that if you are oven roasting or cooking in a smoker where the fire is off to the side in a seperate chamber. BUT – if you are cooking it in a veritcal smoker (where the heat comes from below, like a Weber Smokey Mountain) or in a ceramic cooker like a Big Green Egg or on a grill with the burners on the side turned on, then you should put it fat side down. The fat cap will protect the meat from some of the inevitable hot spots that develop on the bottom side of the meat. Mail me if you aren’t sure which way to go.

Do I have to do that part with it sitting in the foil and wait for it? I’m hungry!

Then eat a carrot or something. You can’t rush this. If you’re in a rush, you are in the wrong place. Close the door on the way out, you heathen.

However, there will eventually come a time when you either need or want a nicely-cooked brisket but you don’t have the time or the equipment to do it in the time-honoured fashion. What then?

Obviously, I have an answer, or I wouldn’t be writing this. The answer is “Emergency Brisket” and you can do it in as little as 6 hours total time, with a 4 hour cook. However, there are two items you need to have to make this work:

A probe-style thermometer that you can insert into the meat and leave in during the cook so you know the exact point to pull the meat out of your oven

A roasting pan that is deep enough to cover with foil and not have the brisket touching the cover

It would also be helpful to have a second roasting pan that has shallow sides, but it is not necessary.

So – if you have your equipment, follow the jump to the main recipe and lets make some beefy goodness! And be sure to read through the whole thing first to make sure you have the tools you need and understand when to change pans and when to use the rack and when to take it out. Ready? Let’s cook!
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The ingredient list for the Emergency Brisket is pretty simple:

1 full beef brisket*
1 sweet yellow onion (like a Vidalia or clone thereof)
1 head of garlic
a handful of your favourite beef rub
a couple of cups of beef or chicken stock
some water

*NOTE: A “full” brisket means both the point and the flat, still joined together. If you are not familiar with this, it should be generally triangular and large. If you see something called “brisket” at the supermarket and it is less than 4 kilos (9 pounds or so, for those of you south of the border) then you are looking at part of a brisket, probably the point. This will not work – you need the whole thing. Talk to your butcher if you need help. Your butcher is your friend. The one you see in these photos was almost exactly 5 kg, or just about 12 pounds.

Peel and roughly cut up the onion into pieces that your food processor can deal with. Peel the garlic (and yes, we are using a whole head of garlic, not a clove). Toss the onion pieces and the garlic into the food processor, with about 10 cranks of black pepper. Whiz the mix until you get a smooth paste. Take your brisket and smear the paste on both sides of the meat. Put all of the paste on, you need to really coat this. Sorry, but I did not take a picture at this step because I was crying like there was no tomorrow. Just trust me and believe it was smeared on there nice and thick. If you are in a super hurry, you can do this as little as one hour before you start to cook. If this is the case, do not put the meat back in the fridge, leave it out. It needs to get as close to room temperature as possible. Otherwise, and if you can possibly do so, rub the onion-garlic paste on the meat the night before, wrap the thing back up, and stick it in the fridge. Take it out and let it start to warm up at least an hour before cooking, preferably 3 hours if you can manage it.

Either way, pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees F.

When you are are ready to cook, take a paper towel or two and wipe off any excess paste. You want to use a paper towels because you also want to dry the surface of the meat. You will note that, despite my having slathered the paste on nice and thick, most of it has mysteriously disappeared overnight. All of the rest of the onions and garlic has seeped into the meat as Flavour Juice.

After you are all wiped down, apply your beef rub to both the top and bottom. Don’t be afraid of it, you want to put in on at least as heavily as this:

After you have a good coating on there, rub it in. Put some pep into it, don’t be afraid of tearing the surface of the meat. And be sure to get the sides as well as the top and bottom. Place the brisket on a rack fat side up in a roasting pan – if you have a shallow-sided one like the one in the following picture, you will get a better result, but be aware that you need to move it to a different pan after the first hour. If you don’t have a shallow roasting pan, you can either just go with a high-sided roaster from the word go, or you can go to the grocery store, get an extra large disposable foil roasting pan, and cut the sides down.

Now you are ready to cook. Your oven should already be at 400 degrees F. Put the brisket in the oven and immediately turn the heat down to 300 degrees F. Leave the meat in for one hour, do not open the door at any point during this time. When the hour is done, take the pan out of the oven. The meat will have a nice bit of sear and crust on it at this point.

Now – move the meat to the deep pan (if you started with a shallow one) and get rid of the rack. Keep the meat fat-side up, and the meat sits right on the bottom of the pan for this step. Pour your beef or chicken stock into the bottom of the pan, add enough water to make sure the liquid comes about a quarter-way up the side of the meat (don’t pour either of the liquids over the meat, carefully pour them down the side) and then insert your temperature probe. Finally, tightly cover the pan with two or three layers of foil. Do not just use the lid of the pan, it will not seal tightly enough. Put the pan back in the oven (we are still at 300 degrees) close the door, and turn on your thermometer (it will probably read about 95 degrees at this point). Leave the meat in the oven, and leave the foil sealed, until the internal temperature if the meat hits 195 degrees F. No peeking! When the temp hits 195 take the meat out of the oven. Carefully take the foil off the pan (try not to tear it, we want to use it again).

Lift the meat out of the pan and wrap it tightly in the foil you just saved. Before you seal the foil, ladle in a couple of big scoops of the liquid from the pan. And don’t throw the liquid out yet, if you are freezing your leftovers you need it (see below).

If you want to eat as soon as possible, seal the foil, wrap the whole thing in a thick towel, and place it in a warm cooler. Wait 1 hour. This resting period is crucial, do not try to skip this!

If you don’t need to eat right away and you are cooking this to store as sandwich meat (or for some other purpose) just put the foil-wrapped brisket aside and let it cool for 2 or 3 hours.

Whichever method you use, when it comes time to slice the meat you must separate the point from the flat before slicing – the two parts have grain going in two different directions and you have to slice across the grain for best results. You will be able to see where the top and bottom plates meet (there is a band of rendered-down fat between them) and you can easily take them apart. If you are unsure of the way this part works, ask your butcher – he or she can show you the two parts and explain the grain and how to slice it.

For serving straight up on a plate, cut the slices about as thick as a pencil. For sandwiches, cut it slightly thinner. And always cut across the grain. Again, if this is something you aren’t familiar with or you aren’t sure how the grain goes, ask your butcher. Either way, I think you will be startled by the quality of the beef flavour that you come up with. And this freezes remarkably well – if you are going to freeze it you cut it before freezing, put the slices into one- or two-serving freezer bags, and add about a tablespoon of the braising liquid to each bag before sealing.