Definitive Brisket Recipe

I endured dating that useless shitbag Aaron for nearly 7 years in order to get this recipe. Okay, well not exactly, but I *did* come out of that relationship with *one* good thing, and it was this little old Jewish lady brisket recipe, which is so good it's *almost* made it worth putting up with that ass-barnacle for that long. Almost.

Ingredients:

1lb of brisket per person you're serving (marbled 'n fatty on top is what you want. Ask for a "point cut" if your butcher is awesome)

~2 packages of Lipton onion soup mix (once you go over like 6 lbs, maybe add another)

Worcestershire sauce

Dry mustard powder

Thin sliced onions

Carrots, cut into coins

red wine

ketchup (a bunch)

Note: most of the above ingredients have no real measurement because this is an authentic little old lady recipe. "Put in the amount you would like to taste" is the guideline here. Prepare for this to be a 2 day process because you're twice-baking it.

1. Preheat your oven to 325

2. Get a deep roasting pan with a lid, or prepare your finest tinfoil hat folding skills.

3. Boil some water and mix up 1 cup of water to 1 package of onion soup mix. Pour it in the pan.

4. Rub the dry mustard powder on top of the brisket (all over dat fat). Put dat meat in the pan. Make sure it's unfolded so it's flat, and about half-submerged in the onion soup broth.

5. Pour worcestershire sauce all over the top (don't be stingy)

6. Splash some red wine all over the top of the meat and into the broth

7. Cover the brisket with a nice blanket layer of sliced onions all over the top. Toss more sliced onions in the broth.

8. Cover that blanket with a blanket of carrot coins. Toss more carrot coins in the broth

9. Slather a generous amount of ketchup all over the mound of carrots, onions, and meat in the pan.

10. Cover the pan with the lid, or do a real fine job making a Faraday cage for your meat with that tinfoil hat.

11. Bake in the oven. Rough guidance: about 2 hours if you're making up to 4lbs of brisket in a pan. For 6lbs brisket done in one pan (which is about how much can reasonably fit into 1 pan that fits in a domestic oven), we needed almost 3 hours. You'll want that thing cooked through, even if it isn't butter-soft yet.

     *** Original recipe says: "Cook for 2 hours. Add more time depending on how cooked it is or how delicious it smells." ***

12. Cool completely and then transfer it to the fridge overnight.

13. Next day: Preheat the oven to 325 again. Pull the meat from the fridge and slice against the grain ~1/4" to 1/2" slices.

14. Skim *some* but not all of the fatburgs from the pan full of broth/gravy. I tried leaving it all in once, and it did make the sauce a bit greasy. I think if you're using a less fatty cut from some hoity toity place like Whole Foods you can leave all the fatburgs in there, but I like getting greasy point cut brisket from McKinnon's.

15. Carefully "reconstruct" the brisket in the pan, slice by slice, pouring gravy between each slice as you smush them back together.

16. Put it back in the oven at 325 again for 30 min. Use a fork or tongs to check the consistency of the meat: it should be almost falling apart when lifted. If it isn't at that level of tender, add 30min and check again.

     *** Original recipe says: "until you decide it's done. The meat should be 'like butter.'" ***