One of the reasons I love my slow cooker is the ability it gives me to buy a cheaper cut of meat and still turn it into a delicious meal.
Brisket, for example, is much cheaper to buy than a joint of beef but after being cooked in the slow cooker for the day it tastes melt in your mouth gorgeous. You’d never guess from tasting it that it’s a cheap cut of meat but it costs a good few pounds less than a more expensive beef joint of the same weight. We often buy it on offer in our local Supermarket who sell it even cheaper than usual once every month or so which makes it even better value!
We generally cook it in the slow cooker on a bed of sliced red onions on low for 8 hours. We used to just cook it with enough stock to cover the bottom of the slow cooker with some potatoes around it but as I knew I was going to make today’s leftovers into french dip sandwiches, I decided to add a can of beef consomme to the slow cooker which is more liquid than I usually use. It worked out well though and it definitely added to the taste of the brisket.
We were planning to have slow cooked brisket for tea New Year’s Day and then the following day we were going to use the leftovers to make our frugal french dip sandwiches but honestly, I had a little Nana nap in the afternoon while it was cooking and by the time I woke up, I couldn’t be bothered with the faff of making a roast dinner so we decided to go straight for the french dip sandwiches.
How to make Frugal French Dip Sandwiches
A French Dip sandwich, according to the wisdom of Wikipedia is simply a hot beef sandwich served with the juice from the cooking process….
My frugal version of french dip sandwiches uses brisket rather than sliced roast beef, hence it being a frugal version but because of the slow cooking, there’s nothing at all frugal tasting about this.
Basically, we cooked the brisket in the slow cooker as I mentioned above, on a bed of sliced red onion with a can of beef consomme poured into the slow cooker as well for around eight hours.
I took the joint out of the slow cooker and pulled it apart which took no time at all as the slow cooking process leaves it so soft and tender and I also fished all of the onions out of the cooking juice using a holey spoon (what’s the proper name for that?) and then spooned the cooking juice out into a jug.
I made the sandwiches up on some crusty bread and added a slice of mozzarella cheese before popping it under the grill for a f minute or so to allow the cheese to melt. The cooking juices went into little bowls to be served with the sandwiches and I also added some macaroni cheese to the plates as I was cooking that for the kids anyway.
They tasted amazing and we’ll definitely be having them again as they were so easy to make!
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