Brisket, a lean cut of beef, is typically cooked slowly in a moisture-based method, but some prefer a smoked brisket with a dry rub and regular basting with a mop sauce. The sauce can be made with various ingredients, including vinegar, oil, beer, citrus juice, and Worcestershire sauce. Chef Bobbie Flay’s mop recipe includes beer, coffee, cider vinegar, oil, stock, and Worcestershire sauce. Regular basting with the mop sauce is crucial for a tender and flavorful brisket.
The breast section of a cow is cut between the front stalks or legs, just below the primeval spindle of the shoulders and neck. While butchers routinely recommend cooking the brisket in a “low and slow,” moisture-based method, others create a smoked brisket with numbing effects, requiring not only a dry rub but also regular basting in what is known as mop sauce. While the ingredients in a brisket broom vary by chef, some common ingredients are vinegar, oil, beer, citrus juice, and Worcerstershire sauce, along with a blend of flavor-enhancing spices such as mustard, garlic, onion, cumin, salt and pepper.
According to a beef cut chart produced by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Cattlemen’s Beef Board, brisket is considered lean, meaning it contains no more than 10 g of total fat. These livestock industry associations advise chefs to use slow cooker or a Dutch oven to make it a tender roast. This applies to ordinary and pickled or canned varieties. Any other method will require a liberal dry rub and a pointy broom to seal in the flavor and tenderize the meat.
The sauce can be purchased as a beef marinade at stores or whipped up using a variety of standard recipes. Some feel that the complexity of a proper chest mop is not worth preparing for. Others embrace the challenge, copying one from an established culinary expert.
Food Network Chef Bobbie Flay’s Mop, available on the network’s website, consists of beer, coffee, cider vinegar, oil, stock, and Worcestershire, as well as salt, pepper, and hot sauce to taste. The ingredients are whipped together and then brushed onto the brisket during the cooking process. That doesn’t mean, however, that the meat won’t have to be seasoned in advance. Flay also rubs a mixture of salt, pepper, paprika, chili powder, oregano, brown sugar and onion powder into the meat before any brisket mops are even touched.
A teasing, teasing broom could mean the difference between winning and losing a barbecue contest, or between winning or losing the adoration of dinner guests. When basted in the broom regularly, a brisket should survive cooking over low heat in a smoker. The results can still be tender and flavorful instead of tough and tasteless, provided the mop is brushed every half hour or so, for a long, low-heat cook that can take several hours, flavored.
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