#le creuset

MY GRANDMA’S BRISKET

This is my grandmother’s recipe, but it didn’t die with her when she passed away in 1996. Instead, Teresa, the woman who helped my grandparents around the house since 1967, continued to make this brisket for my grandfather for the remainder of his long life (101 years). When I first began teaching myself to cook, I had the crazy idea to have a massive Passover meal, with this brisket as the centerpiece. Teresa gave me the recipe over the phone, and off I went, cooking 12 lbs of brisket for over twenty people. It was an enormous success, and has been made time and again since then. 

Note: I have written the recipe for the brisket, but not for the potatoes and carrots that I always serve with this dish. You can cook the potatoes and carrots however you like, and then throw them in with the meat when the meat is close to finished. Truthfully, I haven’t found the perfect way to cook the potatoes and carrots, so I try a new method every time. If you have any tips, let me know!

Recipe: 

• 2 diced tomatoes
• 1 vidalia onion, cut into rings
• 1 cup of red wine vinegar
• 1 cup of red wine
• 1 tablespoon of brown sugar
• 4 tablespoons of olive oil
• 5 cloves of garlic
• Salt & pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• Small handful of peppercorns
• 5 lbs of brisket

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Rub brisket with a little olive oil, garlic, and salt and pepper.
• Using cast iron pot (I use a Le Creuset dutch oven), brown both sides of brisket on stovetop. It should get pretty dark, that beautiful color that leaves its flavor all over the pan.
• Take brisket out of pot and place on plate.
• Inside same pot, place the vidalia onion that has been cut into rings at the bottom. Lay the brisket on top of the onion rings.
• Over brisket, pour in 1 cup of red wine vinegar and 1 cup of regular red wine.
• Sprinkle some brown sugar on top – a little more than a tablespoon. You can eyeball this, though be careful not to put too much as it will make the meat too sweet.
• Put diced tomatoes on top, just to cover the meat. Don’t mix these in. (If you don’t have tomatoes, you can use ketchup. That’s actually what the original recipe calls for. However, if you use ketchup, I would skip the brown sugar as ketchup already has sugar in it).
• Throw in 1 bay leaf and a few pepper corns.
• Cover the pot and cook until done. Meat should be very tender and falling apart when ready.

calming afternoons with a cuppa x