Due to Overwhelming Demand

A flood of comment, singular, asking for the recipe for the brisket mentioned in the previous post. As with so much of what I cook it's more method than measurements.

First have one bloody big piece of brisket, ours was just shy of 6lb, ready at room temperature. If I had been confident of my butcher locating flat-rib I'd have used that in place of brisket. Prepare a dry rub with a nice finely ground blend of spices, my own preference the other night being a tsp of peppercorns, a tbsp of coriander seeds,  two tbsp of cumin seeds, two whole star anise (anises?), a tsp of sea salt, three cloves and a tsp of piment de Jamaique as we say in Preston, or allspice if you prefer, and a tbsp of palm sugar. Rub this all over the beef as erotically as possible in the circumstances.

In a chicken brick or similar closed pot big enough (derr) to take the joint put some slices of carrot and onion in the bottom to keep the meet raised slightly, plus a few cloves of garlic. Pour in so as not to wash the meat clean of dry rub (derr again) enough boiling water to touch the bottom of the brisket, put the lid on and put into the oven preheated to about 180C, then immediately turn the temperature down to 120C and leave for about eight hours - it could actually have stood another two at least.

The end result is, or should be, easy to pull apart, the crust beautifully blackened by the spices rather than the heat.

Drain the excess juices off every two or three hours, but leave enough in to maintain the steaming-roast effect. After resting the meat for at least 25 minutes serve pulled into shreds with BBQ sauce or if you have time a reduction (how trendy) of the juices tweaked to your taste.

To be eaten in wraps or flat-breads with sauce, fried onions, dill pickles, red cabbage, friends and beer. Although as Malcolm Bradbury so astutely pointed out eating people is wrong.