Category: beef

Categories
beef

brisket beef sous vide

It’s not very fashionable in posh restaurants, but BBQ and American restaurants know it: brisket beef is a brilliant and tasty cut. And for perfect results every time, cook brisket beef sous vide.

I’m a big fan of brisket, just click the link to find more recipes I’ve already raved about. I love its loose texture but distinct flavour, the excellent gelatinous taste of the fat. So when Great British Chefs offered the opportunity to ask a question of professor of culinary arts and executive chef of Simpsons Luke Tipping specifically on meat, I had to ask about lovely brisket.

It seems the question was popular, CookSister and Karen Burns Booth asked similar things! Here’s what chef Luke had to say:

It sounded great. Frankly it would be rude not to give it a try. So in summary: brine for 5 days, sous vide for 1 day.

I didn’t have any liquid smoke to hand so I improvised a bit, but if you had that I’m sure it would be fantastic.

I was a little concerned when the meat came out of the water bath. It’d lost a lot of mass and was perhaps three quarters its original size. I needn’t have worried; it was succulent, tender and packed with meaty flavour. I planned to do exciting things with it, but the beef was so good all I did was reduce some of the juices and served it in a bun.

Oh, I also torched it up to try out my new fancy blowtorch.

A fantastic way to cook brisket and I’ll be doing it again. For more information on cooking beef brisket sous vide, I have to recommend the Serious Eats guide which is comprehensive as always, and lets you know which temperatures are suitable for shredded beef as opposed to beef that holds its shape.

Definitely keep this recipe on standby to feed a lot of people. You’ll be very popular.

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sous vide brisket beef

Course Main Dish
Cook Time 5 minutes
Total Time 11 minutes
Servings 4 people
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 500 g brisket
  • table salt for brine
  • 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon mustard powder
  • BBQ sauce

Instructions

  • First brine the beef. Make up a 3% brine solution. The easiest way to do this is to put your beef in a container (I use a large lunchbox), cover with water and remove the beef again. Pop on the scales and weigh the container + water. Work out 3% of this (the weight multiplied by 0.03) and add that much salt. Stir well, pop the beef back in and cover. Leave for five days.
  • After five days, remove from the brine and pat dry. Preheat a water bath to 68C. Mix the sugar, paprika and mustard and rub all over the beef. Seal in a vacuum bag and cook sous vide for 24 hours.
  • After 24 hours remove the beef from the bag but reserve the liquid. Pop this liquid into a pan, pop on a high heat and reduce by half. Stir in a tablespoon of your favourite BBQ sauce (I'm digging the Tesco Louisiana at the moment)
  • Meanwhile, blowtorch the outside of your brisket to give a smoky char. Slice thickly and dunk into the sauce, before serving in a toasted bun with pickled gherkins and salad, with extra sauce on the side.

Notes

If you don't have access to a sous cide machine, you could do this in a low slow cooker for 12 hours. If you don't have a blowtorch, finish on the BBQ or in a hot pan.
Categories
mayonnaise sandwich steak

steak sandwich

It’s British Sandwich Week! If you needed an excuse to celebrate, rather than have a limp ham sarnie push the boat out and have a proper steak sandwich. Don’t just stop there: get decent bread, some onions, some mushrooms, some greenery and slap some lovely sauce on it.

In this case I used one of Heinz’s new sauces: a creamy pepper sauce. I’m a devotee of their Seriously Good mayonnaise because of it’s creamy texture and excellent flavour so I couldn’t wait to try this. The pepper sauce is smooth and lightly tangy with a definite tickle on the tongue from the pepper flavour. Works great in a steak sandwich! I also tried others in the range: creamy chive sauce (great on a jacket potato); tomato & garlic sauce (great with asparagus); and béarnaise (great with a boiled egg). Visit their website for more info.

Looking for more steak sandwiches? Try my Viking rib-eye bagel or Jan’s steak ciabatta.

Want recipes like this? Never miss a post from Big Spud by subscribing to my emails. It only takes 10 seconds and you’ll get new recipes and food stuff every time they’re posted.
Thanks to Heinz for the samples.
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steak sandwich

Course Brunch
Cuisine English
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 20 minutes
Servings 4 people
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 50 g butter
  • 2 large onions finely sliced
  • 2 cloves garlic finely sliced
  • 500 g sirloin steak
  • 100 g rocket or spinach
  • 100 g chestnut mushrooms finely sliced
  • 1 baguette
  • 100 g Heinz Seriously Good Creamy Pepper Sauce

Instructions

  • Heat half the oil and the butter in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the onions, mushrooms and garlic and cook, stirring, for about 10 mins, until golden and beginning to caramelise. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside.
  • Add the rest of the oil to the pan, and turn up the heat. Season the steaks and cook for 2-3 mins per side, or until done to your liking. Remove from the pan and leave to rest for 4-5 minutes before slicing.
  • Arrange the leaves over the halved baguette, then top with the onion and mushroom mixture followed by the steak. Spoon on the pepper sauce and sandwich together. Serve immediately.
Categories
bbq beef sweet potato

baked sweet potato with slow cooker bbq beef

Sometimes all you want is stodge. Stodge with sticky sweet tender meat. Slow cooker BBQ beef is a great crowd-pleaser, and you barely need to do anything bar dumping into your slow cooker.

This slow cooker BBQ beef recipe is sweet, sticky and tangy: just the way it should be. By using brisket it naturally forms those strands that are so juicy to eat.

This would work great with a regular jacket potato, but a sweet potato gives it another flavour that’s so interesting. I choose here to roast the sweet potato with cumin which I think gives an earthy smokiness, but experiment with other seeds you have such as fennel or coriander seed. This is also a dinner that scales up or down really well. Served here with a sticky sweet potato and lashings of sour cream, this is a very satisfying dinner that is ready with hardly any effort.

Made too much beef? Not a problem. It freezes brilliantly, and could make a decent filling for an epic sandwich, mix with mushrooms for a super pie, or serve with fresh chilli and tortillas to liven things up.

I used brisket because I love it, here’s some more of my favourite brisket recipes:

Cholent – this Jewish standby is a huge hit in our house

Spicy, meaty feijoada

Worcestershire brisket

Salt beef bagels

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baked sweet potato with slow cooker bbq beef

Course Main Dish
Cuisine American
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 1 kg beef brisket

For the sauce

  • 100 ml tomato ketchup
  • 50 g brown sugar
  • 4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper
  • 50 ml water

For the rub

  • 1 tablespoon smoked parika
  • 1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
  • 1 tablespoon ground cumin
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon Maldon sea salt

To finish

  • 4 spring onions sliced
  • 4 sweet potatoes
  • 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
  • sour cream
  • Lime wedges
  • coriander leaves

Instructions

  • For the sauce, mix all the ingredients together and put into your slow cooker. Put on low.
  • Mix the rub ingredients together and rub into the beef. Put this in the slow cooker with the sauce. Leave for 10 - 12 hours until a fork goes in with no resistance. Shred with forks and add the spring onions. Keep warm until needed.
  • Preheat the oven to 170C. Rub a little oil over the sweet potatoes, then sprinkle with salt and the cumin seeds. Pop in the oven and cook for 45 minutes - 1 hour until tender.
  • Split the potato, add the beef and top with sour cream, lime and coriander.
Categories
beef

top rump roast beef

Here’s the thing: this was supposed to be about fore rib of beef. The Flintstones style piece of meat with the rack of bones around the side. It was to be my birthday treat, a deluxe cut I’d never cooked myself. But could I find it in any supermarkets? Nope. So I dejectedly chose a top rump roast joint instead. And what do you know despite my disappointment this turned out lovely. So here’s my top rump roast beef recipe.

It’s a boneless cut so even though they can be on the large side the cooking time is relatively fast. If you like your meat juicy then a quick cook benefits this beef joint, giving the outside a tasty crust and the inside blushing and tender. Here’s some cooking times you can play around with, but for best results use a meat thermometer to check the internal temperature. It’s the only way to be absolutely sure as each piece of meat is different, with thick parts and thin parts. Don’t cut into the meat to check, as the juices you have fought so hard to preserve will leak and dry it out.

Top rump roast beef cooking times

Based on a 1kg joint of beef:

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Once the oven’s warmed up (about 20 minutes) put the meat in and roast for 20 minutes.

Turn the oven down to 170°C and continue to roast for:

Rare – 30 mins (temperature when probed 48 – 55°C)

Medium – 40 mins (60 – 65°C)

Well done – 60 mins (70 – 75°C)

Based on a 2kg joint of beef:

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Once the oven’s warmed up (about 20 minutes) put the meat in and roast for 20 minutes.

Turn the oven down to 170°C and continue to roast for:

Rare – 45 mins (48 – 55°C)

Medium – 60 mins (60 – 65°C)

Well done – 80 mins (70 – 75°C)

Adjust according to your joint. If you want a 1kg joint at medium rare, test the beef between 50 minutes and 1 hour into cooking. The temperature will be your key guide all the time.

If you don’t have one, meat thermometers are really cheap. Here’s one that’s only £2 at the time of writing.

One of the key steps is to allow the meat to rest after cooking. Leaving to one side for at least 30 minutes allows the meat to relax and juice to return to the centre of the beef. You’ll be left with very tender and very tasty meat. Don’t worry about it getting cold, covering it well and serving with gravy will sort it out.

Your flavourings are up to you. Something robust and strong works well with beef; my seasonings will form a tasty crust as it cooks. The secret weapon here is oyster sauce. It’s a magic ingredient for imbuing your dinners with big, savoury flavours. Give it a try!

And what should you serve with it? Roast potatoes and your favourite vegetables. Looking for a good sauce? Try this beef dripping sauce.

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top rump roast beef

Enjoy a classic British Sunday lunch with a joint of beef that's economical but packed with flavour: top rump roast beef.
Course Main Dish
Cuisine English
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 10 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Servings 8 people
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 2 carrots halved
  • 1 onion halved
  • 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
  • 1 tablespoon English mustard
  • 1 tablespoon oyster sauce

For the gravy

  • 1 tablespoon flour
  • 500 ml beef stock

Instructions

  • Get the joint out of the fridge at least 30 minutes before cooking. Preheat the oven to 220C.
  • Combine the rosemary, mustard and oyster sauce with a little oil to turn into a paste. Baste liberally all over the beef and season with salt and pepper.
  • Lay the carrots and onions in a baking tray and use these as a trivet for the beef. Lay the beef on top of the vegetables and cook according to the guide above.
  • When the beef is ready, remove to a platter, cover with foil and a tea towel and ensure you rest it for at least half an hour.
  • If you're making the gravy, put the baking tray over a hob and mix in the flour. When you've made a thick paste gradually add the beef stock and bubble and thicken until the gravy is as you like it. You may need to add seasoning. Serve with your favourite roast dinner trimmings.

Video

Notes

Using a meat thermometer is the key to perfect roast meat. Leftover roast beef is great in a sandwich sliced thinly, or chopped with grated potatoes for a beef hash.
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