Well... we have finally found an issue that can bring liberals an conservatives together. Shaming this Senators family tradition.
No wonder you have to smother it in sauce. If you're going to cook it, then chill it, cut the fat off, slice and then cook some more that meat is going to be as dry as the Sahara.. Also given it's brisket which has a lot of collagen in it I'm not sure how tender that's going to be if he's not cooking it for that long and interrupting the cooking process by chilling it.
that dry, ashy brisket looks like a choking hazard Cornyn claims it’s fork tender, but it looks like that tough brisket might actually bend your fork
I love, "for the sensitive types" in his defensive tweet. Yeah, for people who like real Texas food. We're just total snowflakes for demanding that you don't ruin meat. LOL.
The two ways I know of cooking brisket are the Texas smoked method and the Chinese stewed method. Both require a long time and also keeping the fat. In both cases the brisket is made tender by the breakdown of collagen and connective tissue. The fat is there both for flavor and in the case of smoked brisket keeping the meat from drying out. Granted Cornyn's recipe does end up cooking it for 5 hours total but I'm still mystified by why would you take it out of the oven and chill it? Is it just to make it easier to handle to cut the fat off? In a large cut of meat there is a lot of stored heat so taking it off of the heat it will still be cooking so it sounds like he's deliberately stopping the cooking process. Most cooks know that you're supposed to rest a large piece of meat after taking it off heat before cutting. Putting it in the fridge seems like over kill. The only other thing I can think of is that there is a Chinese trick for poached chicken where as soon as the chicken is cooked in hot water you take it out and plunge it into a cold water bath. This immediately stops the cooking process and changes the texture of the skin. I've heard it makes the chicken more tender too. I've never heard of this being used for something like brisket. What's even stranger is trimming the fat, slicing the meat and then cooking for another hour and a half. That might be enough to break down the collagen but recooking chilled lean slices of brisket doesn't sound like there is much flavor or moisture left. Maybe it's just because it is a snowy Sunday here in Minneapolis but this is bugging me.
A proper corned beef is awesome too, that's really the only time I can think of that a brisket should see the inside of an oven.
I've never tried making corned beef but even there you don't stop the cooking process, cut the fat off and then cook more. Looking at some corned beef recipes it's still important to keep the cooking the meat for hours and since it's cooking in a stew it still keeps moist.
