Brisket

I have made a lot of changes but shout out to original author, Joyce Goldstein.

Patience is key in this recipe, perfect for a weekend day when you want the house to smell great and you can sit around and “tend to vittles” for half the day. If you want for dinner, start cooking before lunch. This is fun cooking at its finest.
Ingredients:

• 4 lb brisket (a bit fatty)
• salt and pepper
• paprika
• Oil
• 4 med yellow onions or 3 large ones
• 1.5 cup+ Dry Red Wine (CNP seems to work well)
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup Beef broth
• 8-10 carrots, peeled and largely chopped (3″ long)
• I LB Cremini mushrooms (keep whole)

1. Rub brisket with liberal amounts of salt and paprika, mostly paprika
2. Set aside 4 hours and get it vaguely room temp. If you don’t have your act together, do right before cooking.
3. In a LARGE round Le Creuset (or similar) Sear the brisket all around
4. After searing take out and place in a separate dish
5. Chop onions and saute in oil for 20 minutes in the uncovered Le Creuset, avoid browning.
6. Lay brisket atop the bed of onions, cover and set on very low heat for at least 90 min at least. Turn every 15 minutes. You will get a tremendous amount of juice.
7. Add wine and tomato sauce, covered low heat for 45 min. Ideally the liquid is covering the beef. If not, add the beef broth.
8. Add carrots, low heat for at least 45 min. Carrots MUST be huge chunks
9. Add mushrooms very low heat for at least 35 min.
10. At this point it should fall apart with a fork. If not keep it going.
11. Add salt and pepper to taste

Tips:

Do:

• Use the beef broth, it comes in handy if you need the extra liquid
• Let it go a lot farther at end to get fall apart beef (past 4 hrs)
• Open a separate bottle of Red to drink. You will likely finish the bottle and can then start into the Cab you used to cook. (so make sure its good) after all you will be cooking for 5 hrs all-in

Don’t:

• Cut up carrots too much, they will overcook and get mushy, seriously 3″
• Add wine too late in the process (thus the broth) gets too winey
• Salt until after its all done. Salt at end really comes alive
• Use too-lean fancy-pants brisket, you wont get the juice… keep some fat on it (ask your butcher)