Beef Brisket... Viking style

My Shire hosts an annual event called Winter Nights.  Winter Nights is a Norse-themed event (which I adore to no end, since my persona is Norse, afterall... ).  We are fortunate enough to have as one of our members the owner of a local bar called the Heorot.  The upstairs is decorated like a Norse long hall, and it's *ideal* for this setting! So Winter nights is an evening of really great food, really great beverage options (If you like beer, you'll LOVE the Heorot.  I *don't* like beer, but I DO love Framboise... and they have root beer on tap that's phenomenal!!) and generally a whole lot of merriment.

We normally expect between 45-75 people to attend this event, and it's primarily a FEAST (which is somewhat of an anomaly, but it works well for us!) with dancing and gaming and socializing afterward.  We've done this event two ways.  Buffet style is way less work for the cooks and servers, but you tend to run out of meat before everybody eats (and meat is normally hands down the most expensive part of a feast menu).  Serving it in defined courses works well but you need to make sure you have enough serving staff to pull it off.  (I'm lucky.  I have a fully authorized staff in my Cook's Guild!).  


My goal with this feast is to offer foods which could conceivably have been present at a large celebration such as Winter Nights.  This is the end of the harvest season, and the preparation for the winter.  Extra livestock would have been butchered, stores laid in, etc.  We don't have extant cookbooks from the Norse period. We have references in the sagas, we have grave finds, and we have information from trash pits to base our knowledge on what would have been available.  I don't look at this feast as "This is what the average Norse family would have for dinner" but "This would have been a HUGE celebration... what ingredients do I have to work with?" and go from there! (I do try to serve one "edgy" or unfamiliar dish each year, just to offer people a chance to broaden their horizons!)

Ok, so this is purely conjectural on my part, but the etymology of the word "Brisket" is at least possibly linked to the Old Norse word "brjosk"  (from "brjost" or "breast").  So, it's a start. Now, when I lived in Texas (that's Ansteorra, to my SCAdian friends!) they frequently made brisket... and  not just in the SCA... Brisket is a staple dish!  In fact, it's sort of the "go-to" dish for most family functions.  And it has to be one of the easiest dishes known to mankind. It's also a fairly easy way to feed a large number of people, and if you shop around, you can get a large brisket for a decent price!  We've done this feast for two years in a row, and the brisket has been on the menu both years, and disappeared faster than you can say "Valhallah!"

Here is my Norse-inspired version of this favourite.  It's easiest if you put it in the oven before you go to bed, because it has to cool low and slow for at least 10 hours.  (You ~CAN~ do this in a crockpot on the low setting, too, if you have a large enough crockpot to hold your brisket... I do not.)

1 10-12 pound untrimmed brisket
1 can of beer *OR* 1 1/2 cups of mead
1 thinly sliced onion (optional)
6-8 cloves of peeled, crushed garlic (optional)
1 Tbsp salt (I like to use sea salt)
1-2 tsp cracked black pepper
1-2 bay leaves (optional)

Line a large baking dish with heavy duty foil.  (Yes, I know they did not have heavy duty aluminum foil back in Jorvik or Iceland....).  You're going to need to create sort of an  airtight (relatively...) "envelope" around the meat with the foil.  I normally lay two long pieces of foil on top of each other, fold over one of the long edges a couple of times and crimp it well (sort of like you're sewing the foil along that long edge), then unfold and lay that in the dish. You want enough foil that you can bring it back ~over~ the brisket and seal it inside the little foil package when you're ready to cook it.  Place the brisket, fatty side up, in the baking dish on top of the foil.  Layer the onions on top of the meat.  Mix the remaining ingredients and pour over the brisket.  Seal the foil tightly around the brisket.  Put the brisket in the oven and turn it to 225 degrees F.  Bake for 10-12 hours.  Remove from the oven and let sit for an hour.  Unwrap the foil (carefully.. you're going to have meat juices spilling everywhere if you're not careful!).  Cut the brisket against the grain and serve.

When we do this, I prep the brisket the night before the feast. The day of the feast, while I'm baking the last of the bread and prepping vegetables, etc., I will slice this and put it in foil pans.  I have several portable "party warmer" racks that sit over gel fuel cans.  The ONE downfall of the site we use is there's no kitchen available to us.  SO I have all my food in rectangular foil pans and we reheat over the gel fuel.  This lends itself beautifully to this.  Just layer the slices in the pan, pour 1/4 cup of the juices over the meat and seal tightly with foil, and you're ready to go.

A couple of other observations:  Dark beer is absolutely delightful in this recipe.  I used Guinness last year and I've never had better brisket (and I've had a LOT of brisket....).  I have heard of people using onion soup mix rather than fresh onions and seasonings.  I tend to find that too salty, but I am not a salt fan, so feel free to give it a try.  Mead makes a really, really great brisket, as well.  Some people freak out when they get a brisket and see that this thick layer of fat.  I say, "Hooray!  It was a good year for the cattle!" and move on with prepping it.  You can get a trimmed brisket at the butcher, but I find it tends to dry out more.  (Also.... if you happen to have leftovers, brisket makes a really really *great* sandwich!  We have not had leftovers at Winter Nights yet....)