Texas Style Barbecue
Fans of our Instagram know that Élizabeth and I like to cook meals on weekends matching the country of that weeks Formula 1 race. Over the season this has helped us some excellent new cuisines (Azerbaijan!) and try new things from familiar countries (fresh pasta for Italy). This week was one of the marquee races in our food calendar. It may be the butt of countless jokes, but I rate American food among the best.
Deciding on a meal for the United States Grand Prix means deciding on what, exactly, American food is. With all due respect to fried chicken, milkshakes, and the cheeseburger, there is one undisputed king of the American food hierarchy – barbecue.
American barbecue can be broken down in to several sub-types. Carolina style barbecue mainly uses pork, especially pork shoulder, and features thin and tangy sauces. Memphis style barbecue is focused on ribs and pulled pork mixed in any number of dishes. Kansas City style barbecue is more meat agnostic and uses ample amounts thick, sweet, tomatoey sauce. There’s plenty of other styles across the country (and, if Élizabeth lets me, I’d love to try each and every one!) but, with the race in Austin, Texas barbecue was the only option.
Texas barbecue is primarily beef based. It uses plenty of smoke with a long cooking time to make tough cuts of meat meltingly tender. For our dinner we opted for a nice big hunk of brisket. Unfortunately, we live in an apartment and can’t smoke meat for hours on end. Instead, we cooked the brisket sous vide at 155 F for 30 hours (sous vide recipes for brisket vary between 24 and 48 hours at a range of temperatures. Cooking lower for longer will give a firmer, juicier result while cooking it hotter for less time will be more tender, but a bit drier). It was finished in the oven at 275 F for two hours to develop a nice crust.
The brisket was paired with some barbecue beans, which we’ve included in the recipes below. We also made some barbecue sauce, and you can see how we did that too. There’s also a quick macaroni and cheese; the cheese sauce is a quick mix of cheddar and havarti cheeses and evaporated milk. For a vegetable we made coleslaw with a buttermilk dressing (thank you Serious Eats) and cornbread muffins (thank you Bakeclass).
This meal looks daunting, but there’s actually very little active work involved. Read on to see the recipes for the brisket, beans, and sauce. Hopefully soon we’ll revisit American barbecue. If you have any suggestion, please let us know!
- A lot
- 15 minutes
- 4 hours or more
Ingredients
Brisket
- One piece beef brisket, at least 1 lb/person
- Salt and pepper
Baked Beans
- 900 g rehydrated dried beans (about 300 g dry)
- 2 onions
- 3 stalks celery
- 2 dried pasilla chiles
- 1 tbsp cumin
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 can tomato paste
- Chicken stock
Barbecue Sauce
- 1 onion, finely diced
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 cup beef or chicken stock
- 1/4 cup beef drippings
Directions
- Rub the brisket generously with salt and coarse ground pepper. Seal it in a sous vide bag and cook it at 155° F for at least 24 hours (we went for 30). As a general rule, you want to cook it between 135 and 155 for 24 to 48 hours. More temperature will result in a more tender, but drier piece of meat. More time will also make it more tender.
- Chop the onions, celery, bacon, and garlic into a small dice for the beans and sauce.
- Start the beans by cooknig the bacon, onions, celery, and whole chiles together in a dutch oven. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the onions are very soft.
- Add the cumin and paprika and cook, stirring constantly, until very fragrant - about 30 seconds.
- Add the tomato paste and cook, still stirring, until it’s slightly browned and smells a bit nutty, about 5 minutes.
- Add the rehydrated beans and enough chicken stock to cover them. Stir everything together and bake at 325° F until the beans are tender, at least three hours. Periodically add extra stock as needed to make sure the beans stay wet.
- While the beans are cooking, cook the onion and garlic for the barbecue sauce in a small amount of butter and an even smaller bit of baking soda until well browned. The baking soda will help the onions dissolve into your final sauce.
- Once the onion is well cooked, add the wet ingredients and cook over low heat for at least an hour until well browned. Add more liquid as needed to keep the desired consistency. This can be done well ahead of time.
- When the beef is done, remove it from the sous vide bag. Save the liquid to use anywhere you might use beef stock in the next week or so (like the barbecue sauce!)
- Cook the beef in the oven with the fat cap side up at 275° F until it develops a thick dark brown to black crust. Slice it thinly (keeping in mind it will be pretty crumbly at this point) and serve it alongside your favourite sides!
More delicious recipes
This is one of the many fantastic recipes available on this blog