Julia Child's Smothered Beef Brisket
"From her cookbook From Julia Child's Kitchen. The meat can rest after cooking, from 1 to 24 hours or more. Julia notes that brisket is never tender like steak, but should be pleasantly chewable and have a strong beefy flavor."
photo by anniesnomsblog
- Ready In:
- 4hrs 40mins
- Ingredients:
- 9
- Serves:
-
6-8
ingredients
- 1 -2 garlic clove, pureed
- 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1⁄4 cup olive oil
- 1⁄8 teaspoon pepper
- 4 lbs lean flat 2-inch-thick center-cut beef brisket, trimmed of most fat but leaving 1/8-inch layer on the fatty side
- 1 1⁄2 cups sliced onions
- 1 cup sliced carrot
- 2 cups fresh Italian plum tomatoes, cored and chopped
directions
- In a small bowl, mash the salt and thyme into the puréed garlic with the flat side of a large kitchen knife.
- Beat the oil and pepper into the garlic mixture and spread this mixture over both sides of the brisket.
- Toss the vegetables in a large bowl with a little salt and thyme.
- Spread half of the vegetable mixture in the bottom of a roasting pan.
- Place beef, fat side up, on top of the vegetables.
- Cover with the remaining vegetables.
- Cover the pan tightly with foil.
- (This dish may be prepared to this point in advance and refrigerated.).
- When ready to cook, cook--basting with pan juices every 1/2 hour--in a 300° oven 3-4 hours until a fork goes into the meat easily; by the end of cooking, the meat will have shrunk.
- **** If you are not serving the meat until the next day, transfer the meat with its vegetables to a smaller pot; degrease the juices and pour them over the brisket and chill, uncovered, until cooled; then cover and keep in the refrigerator up to 2 days. To reheat, put this dish in a 350° oven for 20 minutes, basting 2-3 times with its juices. ****.
- Remove the beef with its vegetable topping to a cutting board.
- Pour the juices into a saucepan, degrease, and rapidly boil down almost to a syrup.
- If you wish, you can thicken the juice into a sauce with 1-1/2 Tbs cornstarch blended with 2 Tbs of either wine or stock.
- Carve the meat across the grain into thin slanting slices.
- Accompany each serving of meat with 1-2 spoonfuls sauce and vegetables.
Questions & Replies
-
Can this be made in a pressure cooker and if so how long? I bought Martha Stewart's Pressure Cooker and there is nothing about brisket in it. Some good recipes for cheap cuts. -
The grocery sliced the briskit before I COOKED it? Now what? -
How well will this recipe do in a slow cooker? Thanks
Reviews
-
Ignore the total time, and plan ahead for the long, slow cooking. The prep time is trivial, and I'd put this on a very short list of recipes that give excellent results with almost no work. J.C. says you can reheat it, but I think you could go further and split the cooking between 2 days, degreasing before you put it in the second time.
-
A truly delicious dinner. My oven has a slow cook feature and I cooked the brisket in that overnight on low. The broth, meat and veggies were put in the refrigerator and chilled for 24 hours before skimming off the fat from the broth and slicing the meat. The broth was reduced but did not get that thick so I wound up adding some arrowroot starch before serving. I have packaged up several small packages of the meat and DH and I will be enjoying again. Thanks for posting a wonderful recipe. -
Yummy! We had this for Sunday lunch and it went down a storm! It smelt so amazing when cooking, I could not wait to dig in! I threw in some parsnips as well as all the other veg because we love them and all those veggies were just amazing. Soft and sweet. The juices made a killer sauce too!
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
echo echo
Phippsburg, Maine
[SINCE I HAVE WELL OVER 200 COOKBOOKS, I SUGGEST THAT ANYONE EXPLORING MY COLLECTION CLICK ON 'AUTHOR'S ORDER' AT THE TOP OF THE RIGHT HAND COLUMN BEFORE PROCEEDING. I'VE ARRANGED THEM SO THAT COOKBOOK SERIES OR SIMPLY COOKBOOKS ON RELATED TOPICS APPEAR TOGETHER, WHICH SHOULD MAKE IT EASIER TO FIND THE ONES THAT INTEREST YOU.]
In 2004, I moved home to New England after many years living in the South. Often I go walking in the morning with my sister, who lives near me on the Maine coast--we truly live in a beautiful place. I share a love of ACC basketball with my brother in upstate New York. Nowadays, I rely heavily on Kitty Rosati's Heal Your Heart book (lots of low-sodium recipes) and Donald Gazzaniga's No-Salt, Lowest-Sodium Cookbook. Other cookbooks I frequently use are Weil & Daley's The Healthy Kitchen and Cooking Light's Five-Star Recipes cookbook.
From January 2005 to September 2008, I hosted the recipe tagging game <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/bb/viewtopic.zsp?p=2192193">ONE-TWO-THREE HIT WONDERS</a>, taking four months off in late 2007, during which the tireless, compassionate and totally wonderful Game Forum Hosts <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/88099"> ~Nimz~</a>, <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/67656"> justcallmetoni</a>, <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/157425">Lauralie41</a> and <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/428885">Andi of Longmeadow Farm</a> with incredible kindness of took over my workload. I loved hosting the game and the players there were and are the best, but competing obligations required me to give it up and it's now ably presided over by HokiesLady.
In 2008 my dear sister finally joined Recipezaar. Her chef name is Sagadahoc (the county in Maine she lives in). My popular Recipe #89132 is actually her recipe--check it out sometime, it's great! She eventually realized how useful having several cookbooks can be, so I gave her a premium membership as her birthday present in March 2008.
Some of my favorite sources of recipes are the public cookbooks of other Zaar chefs. I have over 100 bookmarked to refer to occasionally, but some of my favorites are from the following:
In January-February 2007, the Chefs of 1-2-3 Hit Wonders hosted a Cook-a-Thon for veteran Zaar member Sharon123 while she was undergoing chemotherapy at Duke University. The entire group of recipes tagged, cooked and reviewed for the Cook-a-Thon are contained in:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbook.php?bookid=123948">Sharon123's Cook-a-Thon Cookbook</a></li>
<a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/58104">~Rita~</a>: Thanks to her stunning photographs, she has one of the most beautiful cookbook lists at Zaar. Her cookbooks focus on a variety of inspired topics, many of them health-related, and the introductions often provide an encyclopedic disquisition on the topic at hand. Some stand-outs:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/27685">Edible Flowers</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/33443">Honey Honey You`ve got me wanting you!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/33123">Recipes I named after zaar chefs</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/33325">Menopause</a></li>
If you've been around Zaar any length of time, you probably know that <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/4470">Bergy</a> writes wonderfully detailed and helpful recipe reviews and has also contributed a wealth of wonderful recipes of her own. Judging from comments in the forums, her burger cookbook is the most popular and referenced cookbook at Zaar, and her appetizers cookbook is a treasury of finger foods as well as a major hunting ground for Dim Sum:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/30563">Saturday Night Burgers</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/25538">Appetizers/Finger Foods</a></li>
<a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/133174">PaulaG</a>'s own recipes are a well I go back to again and again--I've made tons of her dishes, with great results. Cookbooks of hers I find especially handy include:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/27896">Chicken Recipes</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/45020">Then There Were 2</a></li>
As I mentioned above, while I love the cuisines of all regions of the world, my favorite is Greek, and the following from <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/49168">Cookiegirlandi</a> is chockful of great Greek recipes:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/30983">It's All Greek</a></li>
(Another great way to find Greek recipes is to go cirectly to evelyn/athens' <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/recipes.php?chef=80353">recipe list</a> and then sift for Cuisine-->European__>Southern-->Greek. She currently has 142.)
UPDATE: <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/80353">evelyn/athens</a>, host of the Greek Cooking Forum and Greek food expert extraordinaire has a cookbook of her own Greek fecipes that could be the only reference you'll ever need for Greek cuisine:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/76021">Greek Cookery</a></li>
I'm not a vegetarian, but I do eat meatless meals a fair amount of the time. I've observed that <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/37449">Sharon123</a> is a great one for cooking fare that's healthy and tastes great, which is why I trust and turn to her:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/41407">Yummy Vegetarian Dishes</a></li>
If I want to cook something to eat with my friends, the go-to person is <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/6258">Miss Annie</a>:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/26048">Recipes for Entertaining</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/26046">Pot Luck /Picnic Recipes</a></li>
<a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/1533">Dancer^</a> is single-handedly responsible for tons of great salad dressing and seasoning mixes posted at Zaar. See the evidence in her cookbooks:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/33143">Dressings & Vinaigrettes</a>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/34918">Spice and Herb Mixes</a>
If I'm hanging out in heaven a hundred years from now, I'm hoping to find they've had the good sense to make <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/169969">NcMysteryShopper</a> and <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/8688">Bev</a> the twin bartenders there, so after I go to my final reward I can continue to imbibe offerings from Cheryl's Book #99544, Book #148198, Book #90314, Book #73634, Book #75595, Book #74074 and Book #70836 cookbooks and Bev's Book #86058 and Book #124180 cookbooks. These ladies know how to set 'em up and I know how to chug 'em!
<a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/39547">Julesong</a> was one of the first to take advantage of the multiple-cookbook option of premium membership in a big way. For awhile she held the record for most cookbooks at Zaar. Some of those I've particularly liked include:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbook.php?bookid=30568">Junior League Cookbook Recipes</a>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbook.php?bookid=31052">Second Chance</a> - a generous list of Zaar recipes that received a low-to-mediocre rating but may deserve a second look
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbook.php?bookid=30575">Newspaper Recipes</a> - some of my own favorites have come from newspapers, including the original version of my most popular recipe Recipe #88939.
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbook.php?bookid=32342">Old Bay Recipes</a>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbook.php?bookid=31064">Penzey's Recipes</a>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbook.php?bookid=34721">Gooseberry Patch Recipes</a>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbook.php?bookid=29290">They Call Me the Soup Fairy... ;) Julie's Soups</a> - Julie has some great soups in her repertoire!
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbook.php?bookid=30010">Famous Chefs - Julia Child, my hero!</a> (My favorite from among her exhaustive collection of Famous Chefs cookbooks)
I'll admit I've never actually made anything in them, but <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/13593">Amber of AZ</a> and <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/21752">Mirj</a> have two of the most fun cookbooks to peruse:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/34557">The Bizarre of Recipezaar</a> - Amber</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/42722">Funny Recipes</a> - Mirj</li>
I'm always looking to lose weight, so really appreciate all the fine folks who've come up with cookbooks for dieters. Other than keeping my sodium intake low most of the time for my blood pressure, I don't follow any particular one of the popular diets, but rather am just an old-fashioned calorie counter. This means that I can find gold in all the varieties of diet cookbooks--low-fat, low-carb, weight watchers, diabetic (even though I'm not). Ones I've found useful include:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/34472">Low Carb, SB Diet Recipes, WW </a> - Barb Gertz</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/64175">Healthy, Low Fat and Low Cal Cookbook</a> - Hazeleyes</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/27730">Low Carbing It</a> - The Dancing Cook</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/25930/92/ls=h">Side Dishes Recipes in Weight Watcher's Core Recipes</a> - toni gifford</li>
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<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/33588">WW Core Recipes I Have Tried</a> - ladypit</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/60453">Low Fat</a> - PaulaG</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/33882">Lowfat and Lovin' It</a> - rochsann</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/36682">Low Fat Favorites</a> - Kree</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/30403">Watch My Weight!</a> - KCShell</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/50427">Steaming Recipes</a> - LittleKiwiChook</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mail/view?msgid=367012">Low Fat NOT Low Taste cookbook</a> - Theresa P</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/38141">Guiltless Indulgences</a> - WaterMelon</li>
When I'm looking for cheap or easy or cheap AND easy, these cookbooks come in handy:
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/51062">Budget Cooking</a> - Lvs2Cook</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/51066">Cheap and Easy Cooking</a> - Lvs2Cook</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/31285">College Favorites</a> - .::.Blink.::. </li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/41334">Cheap to Make, Easy to Make</a> - KathyLBel </li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/38218">College Cooking</a> - Julesong </li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/28166">Easy Weeknight Recipes</a> - Vote_for_Pedro</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/34003">Food on a Dime Recipes</a> - peacefulnightdove</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/52627">Frugal Gourmet</a> - Carolyn H </li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/42873">Got Leftovers? Got Recipes</a> - Lennie</li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/59638">Mama's Fast and Frugal Recipes</a> - mama's kitchen </li>
<li><a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/mycookbook/book/45744">One Dish Wonders</a> - Doreen~ </li>
The only freezer I have is the one on top of my fridge, so I don't have room to do once a MONTH cooking, but I generally like to have a dish or 2 stowed away there to cut down on last minute rushing. <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/3288">Tish</a>'s complete library of OAMC cookbooks are the reason I have bookmarked her entire <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/browse/getchef.zsp?id=3288">homepage</a> for easy reference.
Here's a special shout-out to my friend <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/89831">KITTENCAL</a>. When I see in my Zaar InBox one of her thoughtful notes just sent out of the blue to offer an encouraging word, it makes my day. She has a goodly collection of cookbooks, but her true achievement is the 3,000+ recipes she's posted--how does she manage to be so prolific yet keep the quality of her offerings so high?
I especially want to thank that sweetie-pie <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/member/183964">Pot Scrubber</a> for teaching me how to link to other people's cookbooks. Check out what HIS favorite Zaar chef cookbooks are, as well as see his own wittily titled cookbooks <a href="http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbooks.php?mid=183964">here</a>.
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