Cooking - Roasting

Cooking - Roasting (in a outdoor kitchen - wood burning brick oven)

This page contains stories and pictures of "slow roasting" done in the oven, typically after an evening's pizza cooking. My favorite is doing a brisket overnight using only the stored heat of the wood fired brick oven. It comes out fantastic and is free, free, free and easy to do. This was my most pleasant surprise in what I can do with the oven. I used to ruin so many briskets trying to smoke them like so many other people do. Mine always came out dry. The briskets done overnight in the oven are moist and just fall apart they are so tender. After a day of cooking in your outdoor garden kitchen, try one of these overnight roasting adventures out.

Brisket

No two people will likely cook a brisket the same way. That is what I have realized over the years. Preparation, marinades, dry rubs, methods of cooking...there are so many. Following is one way that I currently use. You will no doubt modify to suit your taste and availability of options for spices, etc.

I start with a 10 - 14 pound brisket and then apply a dry rub. Each side is coated with a layer starting with lime juice, cayenne pepper, cumin, paprika, onion, black pepper, and salt.

I also add crushed garlic as a final layer.

Once coated on both sides, I place the brisket covered into the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, with the best results obtained if I can do this a day in advance.

When all the pizza's have been cooked, the fire is out (not flaming) and you have a hot bet of coals, then you can insert your brisket (or other dish) for roasting overnight. In this evenings cooking the oven is at 325 degrees as measured by a simple thermometer on the brick oven floor.

Once the brisket in inside, it is covered by a sheet of extra heavy duty aluminum foil and the oven sealed with firebricks leftover from construction. I use the bricks because they are free :), they will never catch fire and I can sleep well at night :), and they do a fantastic job of helping maintain heat while covering the oven opening.

The next morning, whenever I wakeup (normally no alarms :), the oven is opened and the brisket is done and ready to be removed. The oven temperature in this case is still at 225 degrees. This was after 9 hours with the firebricks covering the doors.

Normally at this point I remove the brisket from the roasting pan, wrap it in extra heavy duty foil, and let it sit for at least 1 - 2 hours. The temptation is to eat some right away, and I admit to having "breakfast brisket" many times, but if you let it sit the texture and flavors continue to develop

Serving suggestions? There are as many options as marinating and cooking.

Brisket tacos. One of my current favorites
Sliced or chopped on a bun w/ other BBQ fixings.
Cubed and added to a stew. This is what we do after the we have our fill of BBQ and taco meals :0
what is your favorite?

Enjoy!

One of the best surprises I had when first using the wood burning brick oven for pizza, was how long it would retain heat, and then what I could do with that retained heat. Temperature holds very well, likely in part due to the use of firebricks to seal the oven. That was another happy accident. I wanted something to keep embers from blowing out (we get some high winds here) and I had extra firebricks so i used those. The firebricks are easy to put in place and remove and do a great job retaining heat.

I typically use a pan with a grate that holds the item i am roasting up about 1" from the bottom of the pan. In this lower area i will add water and any number of spices, herbs, flavorings. Minced or whole garlic cloves is one of my favorites to add to the water. Use your favorite rub on the brisket, ham, chicken, pork loin... whatever you are cooking.

Chicken worked pretty well, and it does not take as long as say a brisket. Not showing this picture (I will add more pictures) is that i cover the item i am roasting with heavy duty foil and an upside down pan as a cover to retain moisture on what i am cooking and to help temper the heat if i place the item being cooked in before the oven cools down to roasting levels. I have only done breads in my oven a few times and want to try this more, especially the sourdough bread that i have started baking during this Covid-19 pandemic. I have baked over 150 loaves of sourdough bread in my inside electric ovens. Will be adding pages on this sourdough baking in the future as well.