Brisket Recipe

This recipe is from my dear friend Lisa. When I first starting making this recipe many years ago, I used to whole brisket as she suggests. I cannot find it anywhere any more so I am only using the first cut. It is still a good recipe but not the same. Cooking time is aboout 3-4 hours and there is no enough juice or sauce. I do miss the whole brisket.

Sure I will share the recipe, but like I said, it is technique, not quantity. The cut of meat is called a brisket. It can be hard to find. It comes from the side of the cow and it is sold as a first cut or a whole cut. The whole cut contains two pieces that are held
together by a fatty layer. This is a good thing as it lends lots of flavor to the dish and a natural gelationous quality (thick) texture to any liquid. It can be hard to find a whole brisket because of people's aversion to fatty cuts, its getting more and more usual to find only the first cut of brisket sold. The firts cut is is a relatively flat rectangular piece of meat and is several pounds., If you find a whole brokest it will be much bigger and will be the rectrangular flattish piece with a fatty thicker piece attached. Keep them together if you find a whole one.
I always cook it in a big roaster that I cover the sides and bottom with foil (t makes for much easier cleaning.)

Now as to what comes next...it really depends. The technique is that you are going to slow cook this for many hours in some liquid. The one you tasted was made with crushed tomatoes (similar to tomato sauce, but with more texture), lots of salt and some whole peeled cloves.I almost always used lots of sliced onions and garlic salt,brisket in, piour the sauce over, LIBERALLY season with salt and add the onions and/or garlic. Cover tightly with another piece of foil
and put into a 325 oven for about 6 hours. Start checking it at 4 hours (just in case you have avery small piece of meat) but be prepared for it to go to at least six hours. The house wil SMELL like brisket. Take it out of the oven, let it cool and then stick it in the refrigerator over night. It is important to let it cool because if you try to cut it while hot, it will probably shred away into little pieces. I have much better luck in letting it cool in the refrigerator until solid and then i can easil;y scrape off the fat from the juices and also cut the pieces ACROSS the grain into nice slices. Rember to slice across the grain.

You will find that you have way too much sauce (there is alot of liquid that is sent out from the cut of meat...hence the shrinkage.) You can do two things with the sauce. Skim the fat off of it and then cut carrots and stick them into the sauce and cook till they are done. This concenrates the sauce somewhat and gives the carrots great flavor. Another thing you can do is drain off the extra sauce and freeze it for your next batch. This serves likes a sourdough starter and ensures great brisket in the future.