Burnt End Tostadas
The point is the best part of the brisket, period. If it were a possibility for me, I'd walk into the butcher and only buy the fattier, more flavorful point for barbecue every time and never touch the flat. But alas, that's not how the story plays out and I either have to buy only a flat or a whole packer, but I had a thought this year that made me head slap myself for not thinking of it sooner—each time I make a holiday flat, which is two or three times a year, why not purchase a packer, separate the two cuts, and save the point for later. That's exactly what I did when making a brisket for Passover and then a month later I defrosted that point and turned it into these incredible burnt end tostadas.
If you're a brisket buying newbie, that first paragraph might not have made total sense, so let me break down a brisket quickly for reference. What's considered a whole brisket in America, also referred to as a packer, is a cut with three distinct components. The first is the flat which has a fat cap, but not a lot of intramuscular fat. Above the flat is the point, which has a ton of internal fat, which renders it the more flavorful and moist option for barbecue. Between the two pieces of meat is a huge layer of fat sometimes referred to as deckle, and this will be a byproduct of dividing a packer into two separate cuts, but don't toss that fat because it can be rendered into beef tallow or used for sausages.
A whole packer brisket often takes me anywhere from 14-18 hours to smoke depending on size and smoker conditions, but things tend to "speed up" a bit when cooking the point alone. Each time I've done this, it's taken between 10-12 hours to smoke it to my desired internal temperature of 203°F. Since that's still lengthy, I actually cooked the point the day before serving and used that smoking time to put together the various other elements of the final tostadas.
The first two to be done were a jar of pickled red onions and a batch of barbecue sauce. I've become a big fan of mustard barbecue sauce that still has a bit of a tomato base, and I think this style pairs particularly well with beef. So I used my most current recipe for this style of sauce which I think is pretty damn good, but I'm sure I'll make some improvements down the road.
The next item up were refried beans and I had the thought, "Why have I never seen barbecue refried beans?" If there were ever a time for barbecue flavored refried beans, this was it, so I decided to give it a shot. Basically this was a standard refried bean process, but I added in elements of barbecue sauce, which could have been accomplished by using pre-made barbecue sauce too. The final beans were tasty, albeit a little confusing because they looked like standard refried beans, but the flavor was quite different.
The last piece was making the tostadas. This was a little frustrating because I'm used to being able to get through frying a 30 count bag of corn tortillas when making chips fairly quickly, but since I could only fit a few tortillas in the oil at once when whole, it took longer to work through them all than I'm used to.
At around the 8 hour mark of smoking, the brisket had developed a beautiful dark bark, and it was at this point I chose to wrap it in butcher paper. The wrapping helps keep the exterior in this ideal state without crossing over into dried out territory, plus the extra humidity that builds up in the wrap helps speed up the cooking process a bit. My smoker started to run out of steam when the brisket hit 196°F, which I figured was good enough, so I removed the entire thing, placed it in a foil tray, and set it in the fridge overnight since I wouldn't be serving until the following evening.
The next day I unwrapped the point and sliced it up into roughly 1/2-inch cubes. The cubes went back into the tray and I tossed them with barbecue sauce before cooking them once again until they were heated through and the sauce had baked down. From there, the tostada assembly went: a layer of reheated beans first, some pieces of burnt ends, pickled red onions, grated Longhorn cheddar, a couple pickled jalapeño slices, a squeeze of barbecue sauce, and sprinkle of cilantro.
Although not a traditional Tex-Mex item, this was a creation that I think really melded those two foundational cuisines. With the strong beefiness of the brunt ends paired up with the jalapeños, onions, and cheddar, this had a strong stamp of Texas barbecue. Then with the tortilla, beans, and cilantro, a Mexican root is clearly traceable. Taken altogether, it's hard to describe these tostadas as anything but delicious. My only qualm with the dish was I think the barbecue refried beans may have tipped the scales a little too much in favor of barbecue and I have a hunch a more traditional bean recipe would even out the flavor in a good way. Still, I'd be hard pressed to think if you didn't make this the same way I did from start to finish that you wouldn't be incredibly pleased with the results.
