Baked Brisket And Brussel Sprouts With Walnuts And Sweet Peppers

Delicious melt-in-your-mouth meal. I ordered this piece of brisket from the butcher in the local supermarket. It wasn't this exact piece. The one I ordered over the phone turned out to be the wrong cut when I got it home. I had to go back the next day and show him what I wanted. Not too popular in the meat department right now.

Anyway this is the brisket, the cut from which a lot of corned beef is made. You brown it on all sides and then you remove it from the pan and add onions, carrots and celery cut up into large pieces to the same pan. You let that cook slowly to get all the flavors from it and then you add chopped garlic, thyme and bay leaf and allow all the flavors to come together. Then you add some red or white wine and reduce until dry and you get that strong wine aroma. Finally you put your brisket on top of that mixture and add wine and water or stock ( I always use water) 3/4 ot the way up the meat, leaving the top above the liquid. Otherwise you have boiled beef. Bring to the boil and cover with aluminum foil. Allow to cook in the in a medium oven until tender. It should take a couple of hours. Keep checking to make sure there is still liquid in the pan. I did mine half in the slow cooker and half in the oven.

When it is cooked remove from pan. Strain the remaining liquid from the vegetables, reduce liquid and you have your sauce.

You can serve it with whatever you want. Here I did some Brussels sprouts roasted with peppers and walnuts and some plain boiled Yukon potatoes tossed in butter and chopped parsley.

This is a great cut of meat. Full of flavor.

This original recipe is an old recipe from Terry which I loosely followed. I put colmans mustard over the top of the meat before it went into the oven and I slow cooked some onions and put them on top of the mustard. The results were quite good. The next time I do it I will put a heavy layer of strong Dijon mustard on top of the meat and onions over that and top the whole this off with breadcrumbs that will brown this giving a layered crust when it is sliced.

Thanks to Ter for the recipe.