Oven Braised Beef Brisket

An oven braised beef brisket is a great way to get a lot of meat for little effort. Of course, you don't necessarily need to buy a 10 pound brisket like I did, but if you do, you'll have plenty of meat to put up in the freezer for other meals.

Not being one who has made brisket in the past, I do apologize to any brisket purists out there, since I most certainly am a brisket virgin with this experience, but I think that what I got was the untrimmed brisket with all of the fat attached. This produces a lot - and I mean A LOT - of residual fat which provides for a very tender brisket, but also means that you really do not need to start with a lot of braising liquid. If you have a trimmed cut, which I believe may be called "first cut," then you would probably want to increase the beef stock to 2 cups.

Make sure that your pan has a good fitting lid or wrap it tightly with aluminum foil, so that the brisket slowly braises. You don't want any steam to escape. The braising produces a wonderfully tender piece of meat - reminded me much of my pot roast that I do with chuck in fact, because it pretty much just falls apart, so slicing against the grain isn't really gonna happen here. I'm glad that I gave it a try though - the carnivore hubs has not stopped talking about it. That'll make a woman real proud, I tell ya! I am told this is more of a "Jewish" style brisket than say a "Texas" style brisket - not really sure of the difference between the two - but to me, this is a perfectly simple and delicious braised beef that I know you'll love.  Maybe for a future one, I'll give another version or method a try.

This finished up just after midnight last night after it cooked virtually all day, so I was a bit tired when I took it out and totally forgot to snap a picture of the whole brisket when I took it out of the oven. What you see up there is a picture of a single serving reheated, since I made this yesterday for today (New Year's Day), and below, a super large Tupperware container filled with the just sliced meat and the pan sauce poured over it, which pretty much looks like a big gorgeous blob of meat!

This with the rest of our New Year's Day meal of black-eyed peas, corned beef and cabbage and cornbread makes for some pretty darned good eatin' folks. Heck, I might even cook up some greens too ... just for good measure! I can use all the good health, good luck and good fortune that there is out there.

Wondering what to do with the leftovers? Try this meat sauce and pasta dish!

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Oven Braised Beef Brisket
From the Kitchen of Deep South Dish

4 large garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
2 pinches of kosher salt
1 teaspoon of dried rosemary
2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
1 (10-pound) beef brisket
Additional kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Handful of baby carrots
2 ribs celery, cut into 3-inch chunks
1 large onion, quartered
1 cup of beef stock or broth
1 (14.5 ounce) diced whole tomatoes
Couple sprinkles of dried parsley
3 bay leaves

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Using a mortar and pestle (you all have one of those, right?) pulvirize the garlic, salt, and rosemary together until pasty. (Course you can use a cutting board if you don't have the M&P and just mash it all together). Add the oil and mix well; set aside.

Season both sides of the brisket with plenty of salt and pepper. Rub the rosemary-garlic paste over the brisket. Drizzle with additional olive oil, if needed.

Place a large roasting pan or Dutch oven over medium-high heat on the stove. When the pan is hot, carefully place the brisket in the roasting pan and sear to form a nice brown crust on both sides, adding additional oil as necessary to prevent sticking. Remove from the burner, scatter the vegetables all around the brisket, add the beef stock, and diced tomatoes. Sprinkle with parsley, and scatter the bay leaves around the brisket.

Cover the pan tightly with a lid or aluminum foil and bake in the preheated 325 degree oven for roughly 1 hour per pound, or until fork tender, basting with the pan juices occasionally. I did mine the full 10 hours, which worked out fine for us since hubs prefers his meat more well done, but honestly it probably could have come out a bit sooner than that. I would suggest checking it with an instant read meat thermometer after it's been cooking for awhile, and use that as a guideline on your time.

Remove the brisket from pan and let it rest on a cutting board for 15 minutes.

Scoop out all of the vegetables from the pan with a slotted spoon and discard. If you have one of those lovely gravy separators, pour off the pan juices to separate all of the fat. Return about 1 cup of stock to the roasting pan, set it over medium high heat and let cook until reduced to about one half. Pour over the brisket to serve. If you would like to thicken, mix 1 tablespoon flour with 2 tablespoons water and quickly whisk that into the hot pan juices.

Source: http://deepsouthdish.com

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