Slow cooked brisket chilli

This recipe is full of warming and smokey spices, with a good kick of chilli for some real heat. Brisket is a great cut of meat for this. It comes from the lower chest area of the cow and really benefits from the long, slow cooking. I use a slow cooker for this as it is so simple.

Method

1. Mix all of your spice rub ingredients together in a large bowl.

2. Trim any excess fat from your brisket (keep some on to help keep the beef stay moist, you just want to take off any particularly thick layers) and cut into 1 inch pieces. Add these to the spice mix and rub in.

3. Heat some oil in a frying pan over a medium-high heat. Once hot add your spice covered beef pieces in batches for a couple of minutes each side to brown all over. If you have any excess spice rub sprinkle this over the beef as it browns.

4. Add the browned beef pieces to a slow cooker.

5. Dice the pepper and onion, and crush the garlic and add this to the pan you have just cooked the beef in (don’t wash it, you want to pick up all those flavours on the bottom of the pan) and fry until just starting to soften. You can add a drizzle of oil if it is particularly dry. Add these to the slow cooker with your beef.

6. Halve the sun dried tomatoes and add these, along with about half the oil they are stored in to the slow cooker.

7. Drain the black beans and rinse in a sieve and add to your chilli.

8. Finally add in the stock, chilli flakes, a bayleaf, and the liquid smoke if you are using it.

9. Set the slow cooker to low and let the chilli cook for 8 hours.

10. Once cooked, squeeze in the juice of half a lime, give everything a good stir and you are done! If you prefer you can take the meat out and shred it with 2 forks and add back in before serving.

Ingredients

Spice rub

• 3 tablespoons plain flour

• 1 tablespoon ground cumin

• 1 tablespoon ground coriander

• 1 tablespoon hot chilli powder

• 1 tablespoon dried oregano

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Chilli

• 900g brisket

• 1 onion

• 1 red pepper

• 2 garlic cloves

• 1 jar sun dried tomatoes

• 1 can black beans

• 160g tinned tomatoes

• 125ml beef stock

• 1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes

• 1 bayleaf

• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke (optional)

Top tips

If you don’t have a slow cooker you can do this in the oven. Follow the recipe, adding the ingredients to an oven proof casserole pot with a lid. Put into an oven set to 140ºC and cook for around 5-6 hours.

I like this served with fluffy rice, and a dollop of soured cream and a scattering of lime zest or fresh coriander.