Mark Hix recipe: Cadwell's spiced, slow-cooked beef brisket

Serves 6-8

Cadwell's spiced, slow-cooked beef brisket (Jason Lowe)

Last summer, an old school chum of mine, Nick Cadwell, invited a few friends over to celebrate the completion of his newly-built, wood-fired brick oven. I must say, it's the best looking oven I've seen, excluding Mr Lowe's in Italy, of course. It looks more like a temple than your normal brick oven.

Nick has all sorts of cooking gadgets, including a Bradley Smoker – for smoking foods – that I use for my De Beauvoir smoked salmon.

I used the smoker to make this recipe; it doesn't exactly cold-smoke the meat, but is great for slow cooking and smoking at the same time.

I've also just had a Kamado Jo grill delivered, which is a fantastic looking outdoor barbecue/smoker and works great here, too.

Of course, you may not have either of the above gadgets and so a slow cook in the oven will do the trick perfectly, all the same.

A piece of beef brisket weighing about 1-1½kg
2tbsp cayenne pepper
3tbsp brown sugar
1tbsp coarsely ground black pepper
2tbsp sea salt
2tbsp onion powder
1tbsp garlic powder
½tbsp curry powder
1tbsp dried oregano

Preheat the oven to 160C/gas mark 3. Mix all of the spices together, place the beef brisket in a roasting tray and rub the spices in.

Cook in the oven for about 4 hours in total, covering the brisket in foil after 2 hours. The meat should be very tender by now – if not, cook it for a little longer until it's sliceable, but not just falling apart.

Serve with a seasonal salad or coleslaw.