Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Belated Thanksgiving from Canada! Sorry I've been a bit slow this week, holidays and all. As with any holiday I grabbed as many of my favourite people as I could and crammed them around my table for good food, good drinks and many good laughs. Typically I'd grab a big turkey and stuff it full of oranges, lemons, onion and rosemary. But this year I decided to do something a bit different. This year I smoked a brisket! Only my second attempt at this, and on a gas grill at that, but it turned out fairly well! Many lessons were learned along the way.

Brisket is one of my most favourite meats. Incredibly tender and flavourful right off the grill but also surprisingly delicious for snacking on straight from the fridge (the crusty edges are the best!) With a few sides, slaw etc, and some Parker House rolls you have yourself a wonderful meal for a crowd.

I won't share the whole step by step process for the day. If you want to know about brisket smoking I highly recommend getting Franklin Barbecue's book:  Meat-Smoking Manifesto. Everything you could possibly need to know about smoking is in this book!

What I will share is this: trust the process!! I spent too much time futzing and worrying about the smoke that I ended up slowing down the process and delaying my meal. Brisket stalls part way through the cooking process, usually for about 2 hrs. Well thanks to my stressing out and poking at it I managed to delay that stall by another 2hrs... which means my brisket was done much later than I'd planned (and I'll admit I hadn't left enough wiggle room).

So learn from my mistake and trust the process! Trust the chips to make enough smoke and only add a few extra when you really think you must. Patience is a virtue when it comes to brisket! And remember - even if it's not perfect it will still be delicious!!

If you don't manage to get through the whole thing the first day (and have some left after fridge snacking) I highly recommend a brisket quesadilla. Loaded up with pepperjack cheese, scallions and a whole whack of jalapeños it's delicious. Using some smokey bbq sauce is even better than salsa in this instance, but I'll leave that to you to decide.

Enjoy!! And good luck! (yes, I know I still owe you some pumpkin donuts - they're coming!!)

I would love to see what you've been making. Share your posts on Instagram with #ragebake !