Wagyu Chilean Beef Whole Navel End Brisket | ±2.5kg

Chilean Wagyu Navel End Brisket - Smoke, Braise or Cure

±2.5kg. Serves 4 to 6. Allow 6 to 8 hours of cooking.

1. Fresh or frozen
Check your pack. If it is chilled, keep it at 0-4°C in its unopened vacuum pack and cook by the date on the label. If it is frozen, thaw it in the fridge in its pack, allowing 30 to 34 hours.

2. Leave the fat on
The navel end is the leaner, flatter half of the brisket. Take off any hard, waxy fat on the outside but leave a layer of around 1cm. There is less fat here than in the point end, so what there is matters more.

3. Season the night before
Coarse salt and cracked black pepper in equal parts, heavily, on every surface. Leave it uncovered on a tray in the fridge overnight.

Method A - Smoked (7 to 9 hours)

4. Hold the barbecue at 110 to 120°C with indirect heat. Set the brisket fat side up. Oak or beech suits it.

5. Smoke until the bark is set, around 4 hours, then wrap tightly in butcher paper or foil. Because this half is leaner, wrapping earlier protects it from drying.

6. Return it until the centre reaches 93 to 95°C and a probe slides in with no resistance.

7. Rest wrapped for at least 1½ hours before carving.

Method B - Braised (5 to 6 hours, in the oven)

4. Brown the brisket hard on all sides in a large casserole, then lift it out and cook your aromatics in the rendered fat.

5. Return the meat, add liquid to come halfway up, and bring it to a bare tremble. Never a boil.

6. Cover and cook at 140°C for 5 to 6 hours, turning once, until a fork twists with no resistance. Rest 30 minutes, or cook it a day ahead.

Method C - Cured, for salt beef or pastrami (5 to 7 days, then cooked)

4. The navel end is the traditional cut for this. Brine it for 5 to 7 days in the fridge, then rinse, and either simmer gently for 3 hours for salt beef, or coat it in cracked pepper and coriander and smoke it as in Method A for pastrami.

5. Curing uses nitrite salts and a measured brine. Follow a trusted recipe for the quantities rather than improvising, and keep the meat at 0-4°C throughout.

Carving. Find the grain and slice across it, about the thickness of a pencil. Slice only what you are serving and leave the rest whole so it stays moist.

If fresh
Keep refrigerated at 0-4°C in its unopened vacuum pack and use by the date on the label. You can freeze it unopened at any point up to that date - at -18°C or below it will keep well for up to 12 months.

If frozen
Keep frozen at -18°C until needed. Use by the date on the pack.
Defrost in the fridge, in its packaging, allow 30-34 hours. Never defrost at room temperature or in a microwave.
Once opened or defrosted, keep refrigerated at 0-4°C and use within 24 hours. Do not refreeze once thawed.
A faint metallic smell on first opening the pack is normal for vacuum-packed beef and will disperse within a few minutes in open air.