Slow-roast beef brisket with potatoes and onions

Brisket is a very tasty cut of beef from the breast or lower chest of the animal.  It is normally a tough joint and benefits from slow cooking.  The result is a delicious, firm joint.  It is equally good cold as it is hot.

Preparation Time: 20 Mins

Cooking Time: 5½ Hrs

Total Time: 6 Hrs

Ingredients

For 6 servings…

1 joint             Brisket  - boned and rolled      

500 gms          Onions  - small        

1 kg                Potatoes  - cut into 4 cm chunks

1 bunch           Thyme      

                      Salt          

                      Pepper      

5 cloves           Garlic  - chopped roughly        

3 tbs               Olive oil    

Method

Put the garlic and thyme in a roasting tin with the brisket.  Massage the oil into the meat and season well.  Place in an oven preheated to 200°C and roast for 30 minutes.  Then take it out of the oven.  Turn down the temperature to 140°C, cover the meat with foil and return it to the oven for 4 hours.

Baste the meat with its fatty juices, add the potatoes and onions to the roasting tin and toss them in the juices.  Turn the oven up to 160°C/Gas Mark 3 and cook, uncovered, for a further hour, until the joint has crisped up and the potatoes and onions are cooked through.

Serve the beef in thick slices with the potatoes and onions. There will not be much in the way of juices, as they will have been absorbed by the vegetables.  Any remaining juices should be spooned over the meat.

Wine recommendations

Deserves a good claret or Burgundy.

Conventional

     Burgundy

     Claret

Interesting

     Margaux

     Nuits-Saint-Georges

     Saint Émillion Grand Cru Classé

     Vosne-Romanée

Special

     Echézeaux

     Pomerol