Slow Cooked Brisket by Theo Michaels

Heat wood fired oven up to 200-220c

Mix all the ‘rub’ ingredients together and massage all over the brisket. In a tight-fitting casserole dish, scatter the sliced onion on the bottom, pour in the coffee and top with the seasoned brisket.

Tightly seal the casserole dish with foil and place inside the wood fired oven, put the door on and cook for a total of 4 hours, you want to cook brisket low and slow with an ideal temperature of around 160c. Check the oven temp every hour topping up with kindling if it falls below 160c (it doesn’t matter if the brisket goes back in the wood-fired oven when it is hotter as the oven will naturally drop in temperature as it cooks.). Depending on the fluctuations of heat, you can check how tender the brisket is after 3 hours.

Once done to your liking, pour the juice into a saucepan and return the cover to the brisket and leave to rest while you make the gravy.

Simply skim off the oil from the top of the juices, add the cornflour (mix the cornflour first with equal quantity of cold water to make a slurry) and stir constantly as you bring the gravy to a simmer. Add more cornflour slurry if you want a thicker gravy (and never hesitate to cheat with a few gravy granules and more water if you like A LOT of gravy).

Carve at the table and serve with roast potatoes, horseradish and all your favourite trimmings!

If cooking in a conventional oven follow the above method just leaving in the oven at 160FAN for 3-4 hours.