The brisket is a cut of beef from the lower chest area of the cow, located between the front legs and beneath the chuck (shoulder). It supports much of the cow’s body weight, making it a tough, well-exercised muscle. Due to its toughness, it should be cooked slowly and at low temperatures. Brisket is especially popular in the western states. Brisket cookng in a smoker or over a fire smells and tastes wonderful!

INFORMATION BELOW COMPILED FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS:

BRISKET OF BEEF STEWED GERMAN FASHION
Cut three or four pounds of brisket of beef in three or four pieces of equal size and boil it a few minutes in water. In another pan boil half of a large cabbage for a full quarter of an hour. Stew the meat with a little broth, a bunch of parsley, scallions, a little garlic, thyme, basil, and a laurel-leaf. An hour afterwards put in the cabbage, cut into three pieces, well squeezed, and tied with packthread, and add three large onions.

When the whole is nearly done, add four sausages, with a little salt and whole pepper, and let it stew till the sauce is nearly consumed. Then take out the meat and vegetables, wipe off the grease, and dish them, putting the beef in the middle, the onions and cabbage round, and the sausages upon it. Strain the sauce through a sieve, and having skimmed off the fat, serve it over the ragout. The beef will take five hours and a quarter at the least to stew.

BEEF BOUILLI
Take about eight or nine pounds of the middle part of the brisket (first letting it hang up for four or five days).* Put it into your stew-kettle with a little whole pepper, salt, a blade or two of mace, a turnip or two, and an onion, adding about three pints or two quarts of water. Cover it up close, and when it begins to boil, skim it. Let it stand on a very slow fire, just to keep it simmering. It will take five hours or more before it is done, and during that time you must take the meat out in order to skim off the fat.

When it is quite tender, take your stew-pan, and brown a little butter and flour, enough to thicken the gravy, which you must put through a colander, first adding sliced carrots and turnips, previously boiled in another pot. You may also, if you choose, put in an anchovy, a little ketchup, and juice of lemon; but these are omitted according to taste. When the gravy is thus prepared, put the meat in again, give it a boil, and dish it up, adding gravy as wanted.

*People hung meat outside for several days (in cold weather or in a smokehouse) to both preserve it and improve its eating quality before modern refrigeration and food safety methods were available.

ANOTHER WAY
Take the thick part of the brisket of beef, and let it lie in water all night. Tie it up well and put it to boil slowly, with a small faggot* of parsley and thyme, a bag of peppercorns and allspice, three or four onions, and roots of different sorts. It will take five or six hours, as it should be very tender. Take it out, cut the string from it, and either glaze it or sprinkle some dry parsley that has been chopped very fine over it. Sprinkle a little flour on the top of it, with gherkin [pickled cucumber] and carrot.

The chief sauce for it is sauce hachée, which is made thus: a little dressed ham, gherkin, boiled carrot, and the yolk of egg boiled, all chopped fine and put into brown sauce.

*faggot – a small bundle, such as herbs.

BEEF, TO STEW
Take a pound and a half of the fat part of a brisket, with four pounds of stewing beef, cut into pieces. Put these into a stew-pan, with a little salt, pepper, a bunch of sweet-herbs and onions, stuck with cloves, two or three pieces of carrots, two quarts of water, and half a pint of good small beer. Let the whole stew for four hours. Then take some turnips and carrots cut into pieces, a small leek, two or three heads of celery, cut small, and a piece of bread toasted hard. Let these stew all together one hour longer. Then put the whole into a terrine, and serve up.

ANOTHER WAY
Put three pounds of the thin part of the brisket of beef and half a pound of gravy beef in a stew-pan, with two quarts of water, a little thyme, marjoram, parsley, whole pepper and salt, a sufficient quantity, and an onion. Let it stew six hours or more; then add carrots, turnips, and celery cut small, which have all been previously boiled. Let the vegetables be stewed with the beef one hour. Just before you take it off the fire, put in some boiled cabbage chopped small, some pickled cucumbers and walnuts sliced, some cucumber liquor,*and a little walnut liquor. Thicken the sauce with a lump of butter rolled in flour. Strew the cut vegetables over the top of the meat.

*liquor or pot liquor – the nutritious leftover water of boiled meat; pot liquor usually refers to leftover water from boiled greens and bacon in the same pot.

COLD BOILED BEEF, TO DRESS
When your brisket of beef has been well boiled in plain water, about an hour before you serve it up, take it out of the water and put it in a pot just large enough to contain it. There let it stew, with a little of its own liquor, salt, basil, and laurel. Drain, and put it into the dish on which it is to be served for table. Pour over it a sauce, which you must have previously ready, made with gravy, salt, whole pepper, and a dash of vinegar, thickened over the stove with the yolks of three eggs or more, according to the size of the beef and the quantity of sauce wanted. Then cover beef and all with finely grated bread; baste it with butter, and brown it with a salamander.*

*salamander – a circular iron plate to which a long handle is attached. It is made red hot in the fire and held over the article to be browned, being careful not to have it touch.

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