My oven-baked brisket
Brisket is one of those things that every Texan eats and every Texan has a definitive recipe on how to cook it.
We smoke it, we braise it, we roast it and we bake it. But no matter how we prepare it, the toughness of the cut insures that the procedure will be low and slow, which means that it will cook at a low temperature for a very, very long time.
For me, brisket was always a Sunday treat. When I still lived in Dallas, after church we’d go over to my grandparents’ house in Oak Cliff and we’d have a Sunday dinner of brisket that had been slow cooked with carrots, potatoes and onions. Or sometimes, to jazz it up, it would have been slow baked in a tangy barbecue sauce. It was always good.
As I grew older, I learned that the choice cut at a Texas barbecue is the brisket—silky and moist, seasoned with ample salt, pepper and smoke. I love both types of briskets, but have been successful in only recreating one type here in my tiny New York City apartment. And even though Mark Bittman wrote in the New York Times that when it comes to your kitchen, size doesn’t matter, I do think that my stovetop smoker is limited to smaller, quicker cuts of meat rather than a brisket.
The briskets you buy in Texas are usually what is known as a packer cut—this means that it’s the full chest muscle (yes, brisket is bovine breast meat) and it’s usually covered in a generous layer of fat and weighs anywhere from seven to 11 pounds. In New York, however, they usually sell these sad little one-pound specimens, completely trimmed and shrink-wrapped onto a yellow Styrofoam tray.
If you beg your butcher, however, you’re likely to get a generous piece of meat still covered in fat—and this is what you want if you’re going to cook a brisket as the fat imparts all sorts of flavor and juice to this tough piece of meat.
I have received countless e-mails from y’all, my dear readers, sharing your brisket recipes. And when I was experimenting with how I wanted to make my brisket, I ended up trying quite a few. I think the common theme in all is Worcestershire sauce, along with a generous dose of liquid smoke. The liquid smoke won’t fool anyone, but I like the layer of flavor it adds.
Here is my oven-baked brisket. It’s the kind of thing you can throw together and then forget about for a few hours, which I love during this busy time of year. I’m sure it would be even better if I marinated it overnight or cured the meat with the rub, but I find that as long as I’m cooking it low and slow, it turns out tender and tasty every time.
How do you make your brisket?
Oven-baked brisket
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons black pepper
- 2 teaspoons cayenne
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 (4-pound) untrimmed brisket
- 1 medium yellow onion, cut into slivers
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/8 cup Worcestershire sauce
- 1/4 cup liquid smoke
- 1/4 cup black coffee
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 3 fresh jalapenos, seeded and sliced
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 250° F.
- Mix together the salt, black pepper, cayenne and crushed garlic, and rub all over your brisket (more heavily on the meatier side but also a bit on the fat side as well). Allow the brisket to come to room temperature.
- In a large roasting pan, add the slivered onions, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, 1/4 cup of the liquid smoke, black coffee, apple cider vinegar, and half the sliced jalapeños.
- Place the brisket in the pan, fat side up, and sprinkle the remaining jalapenos on top of the brisket.
- Cover the pan tightly with foil, and bake in the oven for 5 hours or roughly 1 hour and 15 minutes per pound.
- Take the brisket out of the oven, and it should be tender to the touch. Let it sit out of the pan for half an hour, and then trim the fat on top and slice against the grain. If you desire a gravy, the pan juice is a fine, fine topping.
My cousins in Chico, Tx share this recipe–it rocks! Wrap your brisket tightly in heavy duty aluminum foil. Place that in a pan, being sure your brisket is resting fat side up. Oven bake 175 degrees for 12 hours. Open the packet and slice the brisket on the diagonal and put it back in the pan. Pour your fave bbq sauce into–between–the slices and onto the top of all. Cover pan with foil and put it back into the oven for an hour or so. And you read this right–no seasonings. Just brisket, heavy duty aluminum foil (there is some family debate as to whether the shiny side goes inside or outside, but it's largely academic) and your fave bbq sauce. Amazing results. And a little background–many years ago, I was a technical writer at NASA. We had a friendly brisket cookoff and all the grilling, rubbing, basting, marinating and fussing were beat out by an oven brisket! Go figure…..
Trudy in Phoenix
This sounds great. If you want to skip the smoke, try searing it on a grill at high heat with some mesquite chips before putting it in the oven.
I just found your blog today and I love it! So many recipes and memories from Texas. I was born and rared there and am presently stuck in Ohio. Moved back to Texas after my father passed away and the closer I got to Texas (we drove) the better the food got. I put on a lot of weight moving back. I cried when I read the blog about Luby's and really wanted the recipe for liver and onions. Thank you soooo very much for that recipe. And now, I have found all the other recipes I have been dying for. Really love your blog. Saved my life. I also, miss slurpees from 7-elevens. I just found out about a week ago that I missed out on aluminum straws that were given out free with the slurpees and are now being sold on ebay for $40.00 for 6. I wrote 7-eleven and cried as I wrote to them as well. No one here in Ohio understands me and the things I miss about Texas. Brisket is the best and so many ways to make it. I made it recently for my husbands uncle and he loved it. Slow cooked it in the oven. Both my husband and his family are Ohioans. They have never had food like I make and my husband says that I cook too fancy. (What ever that means. It is just home cooking to me.) Once again, Thank you so much! If y'all are every in my neck of the woods, come chow down with us. It would be alot of fun cooking together and then eating together. Do you still have your Texas draw? LOL. I don't, they made too much fun of me and sometimes so do. Pamela Spears also a homesick Texan.
This is the best brisket recipe I have ever used. And since I live in Texas (Dallas), trust me, I have tried them all. This got RAVE reviews at my foodie dinner club and everyone asked for the recipe.
2 tablespoon of black pepper is way too much…I'm sorry, but I just made this and pepper is all I can taste. Whether you allow this comment to be posted or not, just…woah. Next time I'll try it the same but with much, much less black pepper.