Earl Cooks Smoked Brisket & Veggies for Sunday Dinner

Roast Beef was one of my mom's favorite Sunday dinners to cook, because it was a one-pot meals that could cook while we were at Sunday Services. On the TV series "Big Bang Theory Howard Wolowitz's mother makes a nice brisket, and of course for St. Patrick's Day corned beef brisket becomes corned beef & cabbage. We never had brisket growing up, just whatever roast was on sale. This last summer I was introduced to Capt. Len's Smoked brisket, and fell in love!

In years past when I had brisket in other BBQ places it was okay, but often dry and not real flavorful.

But the Captain's is Special. Shown Right is a whole smoked brisket after the Captain's rub, developed over years, and then smoked for many hours. Below is the piece I was working with for our dinner.

I placed the brisket in my favorite slow cooker, to bring it up to temp. I don't need to add additional seasonings and it is fully cooked, so I line the slow cooker with onion slices to provide moisture and protect the brisket. Quartered Yukon Gold potatoes are placed on top of the onions and the juices from the brisket will run down and make them brown and luscious. A few carrots are placed around the crock-pot. I made a simple Au Jus to drizzle over all and leftover brisket becomes an awesome Sunday dinner.

I always want to have extra brisket on hand for this and many other meals. It goes great in Ramen, stew, sandwiches and I made some Jerky that was a real hit and I will share in an upcoming post.

Smoked Brisket With Chive & Bacon Mashed Potatoes

Few things say "comfort food" like Barbecue, but another thing that does is Mashed Potatoes. For dinner tonight, I thought I would combine them into one quick and easy dinner for the two of us.

I had on hand some of Capt. Len's smoked brisket, some of the best you'll find. I prepared a batch of mashed potatoes with applewood smoked bacon chunks, then added homegrown chives, from my wife's (a.k.a.: "Turkey's") garden, to the potatoes. I then added thickly sliced brisket on top and drizzled a bit of my own Au Jus over the top of everything. I grew up eating and loving Sunday dinners with roast beef cooked low and slow, and this added the smoky deliciousness I never had growing up.

If this post sounds familiar, I did something similar a few months back, and loved it then and love it now. Comfort foods like these never get old, so go buy yourself some smoked brisket and bring back memories...or make some new ones!


My Quick Au Jus Recipe
Ingredients:
2 tsp. Beef Broth base (or bouillon).
1 cup water
¼ tsp. garlic powder (granulated garlic)
¼ tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. Worcestershire Sauce (soy sauce an be substituted here)
Salt & fresh cracked pepper to taste

Steps:

• Boil water.
• Add beef base to boiling water and stir until dissolved. Reduce heat to low.
• Add remaining ingredients dissolving completely.
• If a thicker Au Jus is desired, increase heat to medium and reduce until you get what you want.

Uses: 
Drizzle over any beef. Great for French Dip sandwiches. You can make extra and freeze for later!

—This would also be great made with beef bone broth or canned beef broth, substituting the water and beef base with the broth!

Earl works with Capt. Len - My Food Truck Foray UPDATE

UPDATE!
Since my first time working with Capt. Len on his BBQ Food Truck, I have worked several more times, mostly on a Friday or Saturday night, but I have also done company parties and one gathering dedicated to Dog Owners. Working on a food truck  is much better than I anticipated, mostly because of the great customers! I had always understood that hungry people are hard to deal with, but that is not at all the case. Granted, I spend most of my time getting their food ready, but I have met older people, kids and even out of towners...WAY out of town, like Stockholm, Sweden!

The food truck community is a close knit group, not cut-throat businesses at all, really. Most Food Truckers want to try, and indeed request, food from the competition in exchange for their own. Many share space in a common prep area, and do so on an honor system of sorts. It is literally a "league of their own".  It is a business, with all of the challenges, but to me it is more like how it should be in business. Good people serving good products to happy customers!
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 (original article starts here)
Until now, I was the only member of my family that HADN'T worked in a restaurant environment.
But I ran into a longtime friend (longer than both of us care to admit), who was busy stocking his NEW food truck. He asked if I would like to help him, (I think half kidding), and I thought that it would be a great experience and said yes! His name is Capt. Len, and he abandoned his legal training to do what he loves and is very good at, winning competitions and awards. I have posted about his smoked pork and how delicious it is previously, and I even helped him sling baked beans at our class reunion last fall, but tonight I get the full experience. It is the longest day of the year and I am going to work in a small kitchen, in the hot evening. I think it will be great!

Let me be clear about 2 things. Len is the one who is really responsible for the cooking/smoking. My job was to make sure it got assembled properly and delivered to the customer as ordered. For my first time in the kitchen, they didn't really even let me handle a knife...but I did get cool blue gloves!

The second thing is this is not a food TRUCK. Rather, it is a TRAILER. And it is decked out with most everything one could want in a commercial kitchen on wheels, including a smoker! Len has developed his rubs and sauces over many years to give the best results possible, and that care and attention shows, or rather tastes. I find smoked food almost hypnotic in the way it attracts me to the source.

Ribs & Beans & Len's Sauce
Before & after I finished mine

The ribs are my personal favorite with the pulled pork a close second, but we got very good compliments on the brisket, so it really does hit the spot with everyone. I brought my wife some ribs following my little adventure and fortunately, she left me a little too!

I prefer mine with no sauce, but his sauce is a favorite and a special recipe he has developed for years.

Well, I have now worked in a professional kitchen. It was fun, funny, busy, hot and informative.  I will be doing it again soon. Thanks Len!

Grilled Brisket with Applewood Smoked Bacon Mashed Potatoes topped with Chives & Au Jus

After my experience at Capt. Len's, my wife and I returned to the food truck park to sample some of the other delights offered by the trucks in the SoHo Food Park where I worked with Capt. Len and the crew. We tried a delicious Chicken/Bacon/Ranch pizza from Fiore Pizza's mobile, wood fired oven, cleverly made in a clear sided, wood covered truck. It was delicious and perfect for the two of us.
It was a great evening.

But I wanted some of Capt. Len's brisket, so I bought a half pound of it to eat later.

So the next day I took the brisket and placed it on my new stove-top grill that my wife gave me for Father's Day, to both heat it up anew and give it some nice markings to add to the smoke and rub, for which Len is famous.

As an appropriate side dish, I chose to make some applewood smoked bacon mashed potatoes to which we would add our home grown chives and REAL butter. No other accompaniment was needed, but I chose to make an Au Jus  from soup base & seasonings cooked down to a thin glaze.

We drizzled the Au Jus on both the potatoes and brisket, and ate very well indeed! 

I have said that I prefer the Ribs followed closely by the pulled pork from Capt. Len's, but after having this delicious dinner, they all are equally tasty and satisfying. No matter what you get, the smoke will bring you back!