How To Make (almost perfect) Beef Brisket

It really drives me nuts when something comes out almost right. This had absolutely amazing texture, but the taste was … Well, it was good. But after two days of marinating and several hours of cooking I was expecting something amazing.

I’ll be making it again, and I know what to change. So even though it’s not my final version of this recipe, I’m not embarrassed to share it like I was with the fried rice.

You can see the original, which I cut in half, at The Pioneer Woman Cooks.

Ingredients

½ beef brisket
1 can beef consommé
½ cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon concentrated liquid smoke
1 lemon
3 cloves garlic

Directions

If you’re doing a full brisket (and doubling all the other ingredients) you’ll probably need a big foil pan to cook this in. Since I was doing a half, I used a casserole dish. Start by adding the consommé and the soy sauce.

No, that’s not consommé in the picture. All they had at the grocery store was broth. Consommé is just broth that has been clarified, so it wouldn’t have those bits of fat that were on the top of the broth.

And I actually added a whole cup of soy sauce, not the half-cup I listed in the ingredients. I thought the finished meat was pretty salty.

Roll the lemon on the counter to loosen up the insides, then cut it in half and squeeze the juice into the casserole dish.

Notice that you’re getting a bunch of seeds in the dish. The pan full of very dark liquid. Say bad words, then go get some kind of bowl to squeeze the lemon into. Scoop out the seeds.

Next, notice that there are even more tiny little seeds that the fork didn’t get.

Pour the (finally) seed-free lemon juice into the dish.

Add the liquid smoke.

NOTE: Make sure you check whether the label says “Liquid Smoke” or “Concentrated Liquid Smoke”. Double-check the ingredients, just to make sure. If it says “smoke and water” you’ve got concentrated. If it lists a bunch of other stuff, like vegetable stock, that’s not concentrated.

I added a tablespoon before I thought about the difference between regular and concentrated. My kitchen — okay, yes dear, the whole house — smelled like a mesquite campfire by the end of the day. So use a tablespoon if you’ve got regular, and a teaspoon if you have concentrated.

Oh, by the way, I had a choice of hickory or mesquite. I went with the mesquite. Hickory is probably more common for brisket.

So anyway, now that the smoke story is out of the way … add the minced garlic and give everything a good stir.

Add the brisket with the fat on top. Spoon some marinade over it, and snap on the lid.

If your dish doesn’t have a lid, seal it tightly with aluminum foil. Set the dish in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours, preferably 48. In other words, if you plan on cooking it Saturday, get it into the marinade Thursday night.

Two days later, you can see that the brisket has picked up a lot of color from the marinade.

Put the lid on the dish or, if you covered it with foil, just leave the foil on.

Put the dish in a 300° oven for about 40 minutes per pound. I know, I know … I’m always saying you can’t cook meat by time, you need to use a probe thermometer.

But this isn’t just about getting to the right temperature. Brisket is a relatively tough cut of beef. The magic of long, slow cooking is that it gives the collagen in the fibers time to dissolve. Collagen is the “glue” that holds muscle fibers together, and … Oh, heck, let’s just give the medical definition:

collagen: an insoluble fibrous protein of vertebrates that is the chief constituent of the fibrils of connective tissue (as in skin, tendons, and vitreous humor) and of the organic substance of bones and yields gelatin and glue on prolonged heating with water

Mmm, yummy. Okay, the point is that you don’t want to try chewing on this stuff if it hasn’t been broken down yet. And that takes time.

A couple of hours later, brisket is a thing of beauty.

But just like it’s not about temperature, it’s also not about how it looks. It has to be fork tender. Meaning you can pull it apart with a fork instead of a knife.

Oh, my goodness. I can’t emphasize to you how easily this just fell apart. Look closely in this next shot at how gently I’m pressing on it and how much it’s coming apart.

You could pull this all apart the way you would with pulled pork. But I wanted to slice it. So I had to stop pulling right there or I would have started snacking and there would have been nothing left for dinner.

Whether you’re slicing or shredding, you’re going to want to remove the fat. Don’t worry, plenty of that deliciousness has already melted into the meat. Just pull the large pieces off, then scrape the rest off with the side of the fork.

With a very sharp knife — let me say that again, a Very. Sharp. Knife. — slice across the grain. As tender as this is you still don’t want long fibers when you’re done. Even with the sharpest knife you have, you’ll probably have to hold the brisket together with your other hand as you slice it.

Of course you have to taste the first piece you cut off.

Hmm, that’s a bit saltier than I was going for. Don’t get me wrong, it’s delicious, but it’s not quite right. When something is too salty, you want to add a little sweet to balance it. Let’s see … what would work with brisket … Ah, I know! This preparation is pretty similar to the way I do BBQ ribs. And that’s got brown sugar in it. So let’s add about a cup of brown sugar to the juice that’s still in the dish and stir that in.

Put the meat back in and let it soak for a bit while you do the side dishes.

This is definitely a serve-yourself meal in my house. Put a slotted spoon in and let everyone serve themselves as much as they want. Because this is pretty juicy, I toasted the rolls first so they’d hold up better.

Serve with a side of … oh who am I kidding. This is all about the beef, baby.

And that’s it.

Oh! Don’t forget there’s only a couple more days to pre-order the second edition of the book. Once it’s officially released next month the price will be $19.95. But for regular readers, you can pre-order and get it for the current $14.95, as my thanks for your attention over the last several months. Just send me an email at preorder@CookLikeYourGrandmother.com, and I’ll send you a link for the pre-order price. (You won’t be able to order right away, as I’m finishing up the last round of edits.)