Smoked Rolled Brisket with Heirloom Potatoes and Aromatic Vegetables

Ingredients: for the roast

5-6 pound brisket flap
Salt as needed
Black pepper as needed
Seasoned salt as needed
Butcher twine

Ingredients for the Heirloom Potatoes and Aromatic Vegetables:

1.5 pounds of Heirloom Fingerling Potatoes halved lengthwise
5 each stalks of Celery and Carrots cut on a bias
1 medium white onion sliced
One large container of whole buttom mushrooms, halved with the stems

Cooking instructions Rolled Brisket (prep time, 20 minutes, cooking time 16 hours)

season the inside of the brisket
roll the brisket from the thin end towards the thick end making sure the grain runs the length of the roll
tie the brisket in 4 or 5 places to keep the roast even from end to end
season the outside of the rolled brisket
place in smoker and smoke for the first 7 hours, total cooking time is 16 hours at 225 degrees with a finished internal temperature between 170 and 200 degrees.

Cooking instructions Heirloom Fingerling Potatoes and Aromatic Vegetables (prep time 20 minutes, cooking time 1 hour)

Slice the potatoes in half lengthwise
Julienne the onion
Slice the carrots and celery on a bias
Slice the mushroom into halves from top to bottom
Place in pan and season with salt and pepper
Add 1 cup beef broth and cover pan with foil
Place in 400 degree oven and cook for one hour or until the potatoes are fork tender

Rolled Brisket is a traditional oven braised dish from England that takes 5-6 hours to cook and has many steps from start to finish. This version produces a fantastic, tender brisket with few steps. The longer, lower heat cooking of a smoker allows for the breaking down of the muscle structure allowing for a melt in your mouth dish that will have people requesting it for years to come.Smoking meats is one of the oldest styles of cooking known to man. When man discovered fire the door was opened to a wider variety of foods because now what was eaten could be cooked. First, we had spit roasting and ash cooking, the disadvantage to this was having to constantly monitor the food being cooked and it had to be turned regularly or one side would be burnt and the other side would be raw. The first advancement was the steam pit. A steam pit is a hole dug in the ground and lined with rocks, then a fire is built and allowed to burn down to coals, then a thick layer of green grass is lain over the coals, the items to be cooked are placed on top of the grass, then covered with more grass, and then the pit was covered with dirt to hold in the heat. It is an effective method to cook but it doesn’t produce a beautifully caramelized outer surface on the meat.Next came smoking meats, it is an indirect heat method that allows for a longer cooking time with the items being cooked to be heated up and flavored with smoke and cooked without it being directly over or in the fire. Smoking meat became the most common way to cook and preserve meat literally for thousands of years.With the advent of metalworking, humanity was able to develop new ways to cook food without the need for smoking the meats, but if they were going to be kept, they still needed to be smoked. It wasn’t until the invention of stoves that could control the temperature, and refrigeration and freezing that smoking meats went from a common practice of almost every butcher shop to being a niche industry where people are having to relearn processes that were lost due to technological advances. Today, we have electric smokers, propane smokers, charcoal smokers, wood smokers, pellet smokes, etc. All are trying to relearn the art of smoking meats. Thankfully, our forefathers had enough insight to write down what they had done in the past to allow us to bring back this incredible way of cooking.When rolling any meat, and especially the tougher cuts like brisket and rump roasts, you want to make sure that you roll the meat with the grain running the length of the roast. This will allow you to cut it across the grain when it is done and give wonderfully tender cuts that will melt in your mouth.Season it liberally with salt and pepper and then roll it. Once you roll it, you will tie it with the butcher twine evenly spaced the length of the roast, 4 or 5 places. Once the roll is tied, you will season it on the outside with your favorite seasoning salt, BBQ spice, or blended spice mix that you prefer.

Prepare your smoker and get it up to a cooking temperature of 225 degrees. This lower temperature in the smoking/cooking process is going to produce the most tender, melt in your mouth roast. Once you have your smoker up to temperature and smoke is being produced, place the rolled brisket in the center and close up the smoker, this will require 16 hours to cook fully.^note prep your vegetables and place them covered in the refrigerator and 2 hours before your brisket is done, take it out of the refrigerator and let it come up to room temperature, then preheat your oven and place the vegetables in the oven and cook themOnce you have cooked the roast for 16 hours, take your instant thermometer and take a temperature reading of the roast, if it hasn’t reached at least 170 degrees, you will need to continue to cook it until it reaches temperature. Once the roast is fully cooked take it out of the smoker and allow it to rest for at least 20 minutes, but preferably for 30 to 45 minutes before you slice it, this will allow the juices in the meat to return to the center and you will be able to slice your roast evenly. Don’t forget to cut and remove the butcher twine from the roast before slicing it.

Finaltouch X10

The Finaltouch X10 thermometer from ChefsTemp gives an accurate reading not only for the inside of food but for surface temperatures as well. The diversity of the thermometer’s usage is second to none compared to other thermometers. By getting a reading within 1-3 seconds, the Finaltouch X10 from ChefsTemp is prepared to take on any task it is given.