Unlike the US, beef brisket isn’t a common cut of meat here in Australia.
In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it for sale in a butcher’s meat display or supermarket fridge. There has been a strong move over the past decade towards leaner cuts of meat, and brisket certainly isn’t lean. Nor is it expensive, but it can be hard to find.
I’d eaten it often enough – it’s commonly used in Chinese dishes – but I’d never tried cooking it myself until last week. I was after cheap meat for stock, and Dave the butcher suggested I use a combination of brisket with soup bones. After I’d made the stock, I was astounded by the flavour and tenderness of the leftover meat.
So I decided to experiment. I laid two kilos of the meat into my pressure cooker and covered it with a tin of tomato pulp, water, carrots, onion, a couple of bay leaves, fresh oregano, and seasoned with salt and pepper. I brought the cooker to full pressure, kept it there for twenty minutes, then turned the heat off and let it sit for a couple of hours.
When I opened the pot, the brisket was literally falling off the bone. I carefully removed all the fat and sinew, and shredded the meat. The two kilos of raw product yielded about 600 grams of meltingly tender, incredibly flavourful cooked meat.
The cooking liquid was strained and refrigerated – once cold, I removed and discarded the hard layer of fat, then portioned the stock into containers for freezing. It will make a wonderful base for future soups or paella.
The brisket meat offered a multitude of options – we considered turning it into a pasta sauce, or lasagne filling, or simply eating it pulled meat style in a sandwich. In the end, we made a simple moussaka, recooking the meat with tomatoes, zucchini and oregano flowers and then layering it with sliced boiled potatoes, oven roasted eggplant, and topping with a white sauce…
I feel like I’ve discovered a new ingredient! Next on the agenda – beef brisket meat pie!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
This is great Celia, a simple ingredient which gives you so many different options! That mousakka looks delicious! Happy Sunday.
Jane, thank you! I’m thinking about cooking up a large batch and freezing the meat so that we can turn out a quick weekday dinner…
Whenever I hear beef brisket it makes me think of Howard’s mum from Big Bang Theory. Apparently she makes the best brisket.
I love the look of your moussaka. I hope you’ll be sharing that recipe!
Claire, we were making Wolowitz jokes as we were cooking it as well. It’s not really moussaka, at least not in the traditional Greek sense, but I’ll write it up soon anyway. Thanks for asking! :)
WOW! Looks I can eat all of them… Thank you dear Celia, have a nice day, with my love, nia
Thanks Nia! Hope you’re having a lovely day too. I went and bought some new Turkish teas last week – what an amazing variety you have on offer there! :)
Yes, that’s true about brisket not being common here in Australia. I don’t think I’ve ever cooked with it. You do come up with some incredible ideas and I think using it to make a moussaka was genius. And you have some lovely homemade stock to use on another occasion too. Looking forward to the brisket beef pie!
Charlie, that’s very kind, thank you! The stock is fabulous, I was tempted to serve it up straight away as a beef and veg soup. I think it might make a nice noodle soup actually…
You always make me so hungry esp now that I have a habit of reading your awesome blog the moment I wake up :D can’t wait to hear more of your yummy stories :)
Hello love, thanks for reading. It’s always nice to hear from you.. :)
Celia, what a coincidence! I just made brisket this past week, my photos are not that great, I am debating whether I should blog about. The recipe was amazing, though….
I love brisket, don’t cook it very often, but it’s always a crowd pleaser with our family
Sally, I was astounded by how much flavour was in the meat. And it cooked to super tender in the pressure cooker – sometimes beef cuts can get a little chewy in there…
Looks great!
I use this cut for a beef bbq- loose meat style.
Since I do it in a crockpot, I also have the broth to use in a soup.
I wonder why they don’t make this cut available in Australia?
Heidi, I think at the back of my mind the whole time was your pulled meat recipe from a few weeks back. When I had all the meat off the bones, I was tempted just to scoop it into sandwiches! Brisket is uncommon here and very very cheap – about half the price of osso bucco.
We love brisket…it’s a favorite for holidays around here. That pile of fall-off-the-bone meat and that moussaka look amazing!!
Abby, thank you! It was surprisingly tender!
Mmmm…slow cooked beef. Heaven, I have found thee!
Thanks Cosmo..it was almost enough to inspire poetry out of me.. ;-)
What a great multi-purpose meat! I love how you used it in so many dishes, and it will spread to so many more. I’ll be keeping my eye out for brisket now too.
Becca, there’s a bit of work involved unless you’re happy to eat all the fat (I wasn’t). But it reminded me yet again that the fat is where the flavour is – something we tend to forget in this day and age of lean meat…
What a lovely post; doesn’t it look divine!
I usually have to wait until I make a trip to TJ”S in Balmain for the lesser known cuts of meat I use.
Elaine, I don’t think it’s hard to find, I just don’t think the butchers usually display it. I suspect they might use it for mince of something. Our guys always have it, we just need to ask for it.
Hi :) You should try cooking it with lots of tomatoes and soy sauce (and spring onions and ginger etc)! My dad’s favourite! I’m about to fire up my clay oven and try out your whiskey chocolate cake recipe. And I have a pot of beef that’ll be cooked in there at end of the night too. It’s a traditional Taiwanese recipe with soy sauce, ginger and lots of spring onions. I’m using shin cuts. When I was buying the meat I was divided between the briskets with tomatoes and this recipe I decided on.
Ooh, that sounds very good, thank you! I haven’t tried cooking it Asian style yet. Hope you like the whiskey cake!
We cook brisket more than most, I think, and I absolutely love it. We have a fantastic recipe for a Texan smoked brisket, and with the leftovers make it into knishes. However, I never thought to use it in moussaka before. Seriously yum!
I’m thinking to use it in place of mince in recipes – I think it will work well in pies, lasagnes etc., as well as a pasta ragu. Smoking sounds fun – it seems a very popular way of preparing brisket.
We don’t get brisket here either. Most of the meat is imported already butchered (from your neck of the woods) so they don’t bother to ship it. This is exactly the kind of cooking I like.
Sally, I had a friend visiting from the UK who told me that she grew up on brisket, and to her, it was the taste of a traditional meat pie…
Hmm, we have a brisket in the freezer but I don’t have a pressure cooker, I need t look at what you have done and see what can be arranged.. celi
Celi, I’m going to try to use my pressure cooker more this year if I can, because it seems to be a very economical way to cook. The direct heat was on for only about half an hour, but the pot retained so much heat that when the pressure finally dissipated half an hour later, the soup was still boiling vigorously!
You can buy great beef brisket from asian butchers used in Vietnamese Pho soup.
Thanks Amanda, a friend told me that yesterday as well. I’ll check it out! :)
Absolutely heavenly Celia. I think the cheaper cuts are meat are coming back in to fashion.
:-) Mandy
Mandy, I hope so. There’s so many options out there that I still don’t know about…
We love a good brisket pot roast – our favourite leftover is enchiladas.
Such a shame it’s hard to find in Oz. Then again, it’s impossible to find corned beef in London, so swings and roundabouts I guess.
Kate, it’s funny how it works, isn’t it. Mind you, I’ve never been a corned beef fan.. :)
I love cuts for slow cooking… ox cheeks are still good and cheap here, and I looove them in slow-braising recipes. I posted one recently for ox cheeks bourgignon that was just so very good. The meat is spoon soft.
Kavey, love the new blog layout! We can buy beef cheeks here, but Pete finds them a bit gamey (the big wuss ;-)).
We also enjoy meats like this, the fat improves the flavour so much! That moussaka must have tasted wonderful.
Sue, it was delicious, thank you! I kept thinking how good the meat would have been in a lasagne too…
I like the idea of using chunky beef in things that would otherwise just be made of mince
I have to agree – I’d like to use shredded beef in a bolognese ragu sauce next I think…
I think we had brisket recently, slow cooked and made into pie filling. Is it the cut that gets used for making salt beef? I can’t remember now. I want your moussaka though (badly, I do, really want your moussaka) , how do you get the white fluffy top part to stay on top, when I used to make moussaka it always kind of vanished downwards into the other layers. In Greece it sits on top like an egg custard almost. Yours looks like it is perched on the top too ;)
Jo, I’ll write up the “moussaka” soon, I really should use inverted commas, because it wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination a genuine Greek moussaka. But it was delicious. The fluffy stuff stays on top because we add egg yolks, and because we’ve layered it over the top of eggplant! :)
Hi Joanna.
I use brisket for salt beef, yes, which I cure for 30 days. You can use that or silverside.
We use our crock pot at least once a week. Although here brisket is more expensive then some other cuts.
Maz
Maz, isn’t that funny? It’s the cheapest cut you can buy here!
I just popped for a visit,luckily I found a new way of cooking\serving the brisket,here in south africa is amongst the favourite,nice post
Thanks for stopping by! :)
Celia, this looks and sounds so hearty and delicious! I wish I hadn’t left my 1970s crockpot behind at the cooking school! May need to buy another.
Lizzy, I gave my crockpot away, I’ve never really been a fan. Between the pressure cooker and the clay pots in the oven, I haven’t missed it at all! :)
Brisket is something I haven’t tried but this looks worth doing for the stock as well as the meat. The meat looks like it would be excellent in authentic Mexican dishes too.
Celia and fellow readers, off topic, do you have any idea where I might source unadulterated dehydrated vegetable flakes? I have a recipe I want to try them in but I can’t track down an Australian supplier. Thank you.
Rose, we actually sent out to make stock – we made fish and beef last weekend. Fabulous idea about Mexican dishes – the meat would make a lovely taco filling. I’m sorry but I have no idea about the vegetable flakes, wouldn’t really even know where to look…
This looks awesome! Ive eaten brisket a few times but never actually cooked with it. Looks fab :)
Thanks Nic! :)
If brisket is so hard to find in Australia, I recommend freezing it and then on nice summer day pop it on the grill at its lowest setting and let it cook for about 6 hours in a tin pan. Give it a drink of brew about every hour and it will be awesome on its own. Though I do recommend collard/mustard greens and herb roasted potatoes.
Thanks for stopping by, David! It’s not hard to find, you just need to ask for it, as it’s not commonly on display. I can imagine a six hour slow cook would result in amazingly tender meat…
I don’t think you dishonored anything. While it’s common here, I only see it at good butchers. Maybe others have different experiences.
Thanks Greg! Next time I have some left over, I’m going to try Katherine’s chili, it looks wonderful!
http://rufusguide.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/chili-with-smoked-brisket-and-venison/
Looks great Celia. I’m on a bit of a brisket mission at the moment, looking to do a long slow BBQ. It is reasonably available at the Vic and Footscray markets. Thanks for your post though. Was very useful to me as I looked up brisket in a recently purchased cookbook and discovered 17 pages of the book are missing! Hopefully I can get it replaced.
The only brisket I’ve found has been cut into pieces, but I’m guessing you’re after a full slab?
I know what you mean, I had the same challenge when trying to get brisket! I love the idea of the moussaka-a brisket shepherd’s pie would be gorgeous too!
Oooh yes, shepherd’s pie is a great idea!
Your brisket looks super tender… I really wanna have that for dinner :)
Tes, it was soooo tender! We’ve got all sorts of ideas for it.. :)
Hi Celia.
Isn’t brisket just the best beef for flavour. I “discovered” it a couple of years ago when I saw Hugh Fearnley W. making a roast with shallots. Simply left for 5 hours, it produced its own sauce.
Fantastic cut of meat.
And your moussaka looks amazing.
Gill, I’ve never tried roasting it, maybe that’s the next step. Thank you! :)
Dear Celia,
I love beef brisket and you can usually find it in Asian butchers where it’s all rolled up and cling-wrapped. It’s great marinated with oyster sauce and then braised with star anise, cloves, cinnamon and eaten like “kon-low” noodles, topped with diced shallots and deep-fried onions.
Cook it the day before and the fat can be quite easily skimmed off after it’s been in the fridge overnight.
Chopinand, thank you for the suggestions, I’ll give them a go. I like having the cooked meat on hand, ready to be turned into something else! :)
That does look good! Alas, my deep freeze died during last week and we lost a fair bit of homemade goodness. Spent the weekend preserving, cooking meal after meal and several more in advance. Lost all my good chook stock :-(
Bugger Vix, I’m sorry to hear that. Hope you managed to save some of it!
I am drooling! Love your blog!
Thanks for stopping by, Haley! :)
My pleasure!
This looks incredibly tasty!!! It’s almost time for bed and I am feeling hungry hehe Great recipe and post!
Thanks Sandra! :)
[…] the deliciousness of that meal. Another great use for leftovers would be a moussaka type dish, as this one made last month by Celia. The season for long braises is pretty much over, so this was a fantastic […]
Celia, I love brawn. Made it once and it was soooooo delicious! Unfortunately I didn’t write my recipe down. Have you ever made it ? I think the brisket would work well with pigs trotters and pickled belly pork. What do you think?
Vicki
Vicki, I’ve never made it before, sorry! Wouldn’t you normally use all pork, though?