Dear Reader,

I’ve never cooked brisket in a pressure cooker before. I’ve only ever done it in a slow cooker. 

If I can cook something in the slow cooker, why can’t I do something in the pressure cooker?

At first, I thought I might be my usual lazy self and dump the entire lump of meat into the autoclave and just let it rip. Then, I thought, since I’m in lockdown, why not be a little more creative.

So using a Japanese meat cleaver, because that’s how I roll, I cut the brisket into large bite-sized (if you’re greyhound) chunks and roll the beef in flour and then ‘brown’ the floured meat off.

To keep it authentically unhealthy, I used beef dripping in the skillet to brown the floured brisket.

During the next week, I will eat the leftover chunks of brisket for lockdown dinners.

Ingredients

• Beef brisket (1 kilogram)
• Flour
• Beef dripping
• Red wine (1 cup)
• Beef stock (1 cup)
• Potato (1)
• Brown onion (1)
• Barbecue sauce (½ cup)
• Worcestershire sauce (¼ cup)
• Pumpkin
• Cauliflower

Instructions

1. Sharpen the meat cleaver and think about Proverbs 27:17 (Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another). A sharp knife is a beautiful thing.
2. Slice the brisket and dice the meat into large chunks.
3. Put some flour into a bowl and coat the pieces of beef one at a time.
4. Place the floured meat into a tray.
5. Heat a skillet and add some beef dripping until it’s hot.
6. Add the floured chunks of meat and brown the surfaces. Be careful not to overcrowd the skillet. You want the surface of the meat to fry and not steam.
7. In the pressure cooker, add the beef, brown onion, spud, and all the flavouring ingredients from the list apart from the pumpkin and cauliflower. 
8. Seal the pressure cooker and cook for 45 minutes.
9. Rub some oil over the pumpkin and cauliflower and put them into a hot oven until you can penetrate each of them with a sharp paring knife and not feel any resistance.
10. After the pressure cooker finishes, allow the pressure to equalise and open the lid.
11. Remove the meat and place all of it into a container apart from a few chunks for dinner.
12. Serve the brisket with cauliflower, pumpkin, and spud.
13. Give thanks to the Lord and enjoy the meal while listening to a sermon podcast from a good preacher.

Final thoughts

The brisket tasted pretty good. It had a good mouthfeel and flavour. Cooking the meat in a pressure cooker was pretty easy. I think setting and forgetting in a slow cooker would be just as good.

What’s happened this week?

The biggest news is that Canberra went into COVID-19 lockdown. We have cases linked with the outbreak in Sydney, which has now spread across many regions in New South Wales.

The saddest news was reading about the death of my favourite teacher at school. If you have Facebook, you can read what I wrote here. I am pretty sad about the death of Mr Stephenson; he was a fantastic teacher. Good teachers are what we need for our young people. If you want to connect with me on Facebook, feel free to send me a friend request. 

The best things this week included dinner with friends from church and reconnecting with an old friend. 

Stay safe, friends.

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