Brisket
Updated April 16, 2024

- Total Time
- 12 ¼ hours
- Prep Time
- 15 minutes
- Cook Time
- 4 hours, plus overnight chilling
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 5pounds beef brisket
- 2garlic cloves, peeled
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 3medium yellow onions, cut into chunks
- 1(15-ounce) can diced or crushed tomatoes
- 2celery stalks with leaves, chopped
- 1fresh bay leaf
- 1fresh thyme sprig
- 1fresh rosemary sprig
- 2cups dry red wine
- 6 to 8carrots, peeled and sliced diagonally
- ¼cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
Preparation
- Step 1
Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Step 2
In a 9-by-13-inch Pyrex baking dish, rub the brisket with the garlic (you can leave the garlic in the dish), then sprinkle it all over with 2 teaspoons salt and about 1 teaspoon pepper. Lay the brisket fat side up. Top this with even layers of the onions, tomatoes, celery, bay leaf, thyme and rosemary. Pour the red wine on top, then cover with aluminum foil and seal tightly.
- Step 3
Transfer to the oven and bake for about 3 hours, basting every 30 minutes or so with the pan juices.
- Step 4
Add the carrots and half the parsley, and bake, uncovered, for about 30 minutes more, or until the carrots are cooked and the beef is tender. To test for doneness: Stick a fork in the flat (thinner or leaner) end of the brisket. When there is a light pull on the fork as it is removed from the meat, it is fork-tender.
- Step 5
Bring the meat to room temperature in the sauce, then remove it to a cutting board and trim all visible fat from the brisket. Look for the grain — the muscle lines of the brisket — and, with a sharp knife, cut slices across the grain about ¼-inch thick.
- Step 6
Return the sliced brisket to the baking dish with the sauce, nestling the meat into the liquid, and refrigerate overnight or freeze. When you’re ready to serve, reheat it, covered, in a 350-degree oven for 20 minutes.
- Step 7
If the gravy needs reducing, put the meat on a serving platter, strain the liquid into a saucepan and reduce the gravy over medium heat until it has the desired consistency; season to taste. Pour some over the meat, and put the rest in a gravy boat. Cover the meat with the carrots (and onions, if desired) and the remaining parsley, and serve.
Private Notes
Comments
I really wish folks would understand that the recipe is just how this person cooked it. If you're a good cook, you can modify it however you want, and that includes the vessel in which you cook the brisket...
Why isn’t this being prepared in a Dutch oven? Putting it in a Pyrex dish is just not right. Also I would slice the onions instead of chunks.
It is much easier to cut the meat when it is cold. Ditto with the fat skimming, when it's a solid. I only reheat the meat after those steps.
To each his/her own, of course, but for me anything that distracts from the supreme beefiness of a good brisket defeats the point. Wine and tomatoes are wonderful in any number of dishes, but not in my brisket, in which the liquid addition is beef broth/stock (and sometimes a mixture of beef and chicken, which, to my taste, doesn't distract, only enriches). As for skimming and slicing, yes, of course wait until it's cold the next day.
Since I started using my slow cooker for briskets and stews, I never looked back. For most recipes I do a quick sear of the meat and veggies, before I put everything in a slow cooker, but it is worth dirtying the extra pan for the ease and the result. I can refrigerate the insert from the slow cooker over night, skim the fat and heat it back up the next day. It is stupid easy and comes out great with very little attention.
I made the recipe as written, but in a Dutch oven with an inverted foil lid. I turned the heat down to 300 after the first hour or so because the gravy was boiling. The meat is so flavorful and tender. I have made many briskets and I think I have found a winner!