Sunday Dinner: Tyler Florence's Beef Brisket

Brisket is wonderful comfort food, isn't it? I had a nice specimen from Triple S Farm in the freezer, so on a recent Sunday, I rooted around for a new recipe to try out on it. When I found the Tyler Florence recipe, I knew I'd hit the jackpot, because I had all of the ingredients on hand, including homegrown fresh rosemary (I brought part of my plant indoors last year and it's holding its own in a pot on the kitchen windowsill).Florence has you serving the brisket with latkes (potato pancakes), but I went with mashed potatoes to which I added some horseradish. It was a mean Sunday dinner.

Tyler Florence's Beef Brisket
Recipe from the Food Network Web site

4 large garlic cloves, smashed
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
4 sprigs fresh rosemary, needles striped from the stem and chopped
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 (4 pound) beef brisket, first-cut
Coarsely ground black pepper
4 large carrots, cut in 3-inch chunks
3 celery stalks, cut in 3-inch chunks
4 large red onions, halved
2 cups dry red wine
1 (16-ounce) can whole tomatoes, hand-crushed
1 handful fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
3 bay leaves
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour (optional)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

On a cutting board, mash the garlic and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt together with the flat-side of a knife into a paste. Add the rosemary and continue to mash until incorporated. Put the garlic-rosemary paste in a small bowl and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil; stir to combine.

Season both sides of the brisket with a fair amount of kosher salt and ground black pepper. Place a large roasting pan or Dutch oven over medium-high flame and coat with the remaining olive oil. Put the brisket in the roasting pan and sear to form a nice brown crust on both sides. Lay the vegetables all around the brisket and pour the rosemary paste over the whole thing. Add the wine and tomatoes; toss in the parsley and bay leaves. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and transfer to the oven. (I didn't use the foil, I just used the Dutch oven's own cover.) Bake for about 3 to 4 hours, basting every 30 minutes with the pan juices, until the beef is fork tender.

Remove the brisket to a cutting board and let it rest for 15 minutes. Scoop the vegetables out of the roasting pan and onto a platter, cover to keep warm. Pour out some of the excess fat, and put the roasting pan with the pan juices on the stove over medium-high heat. Boil and stir for 5 minutes until the sauce is reduced by half. (If you want a thicker sauce, mix 1 tablespoon of flour with 2 tablespoons of wine or water and blend into the gravy).

Slice the brisket across the grain (the muscle lines) at a slight diagonal.
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As you can see in the photo, we didn't manage to slice all of the brisket against the grain of the meat, which was too bad. Even so, it was delicious and tender. I did use flour to thicken the sauce at the end, and that worked out very well; the gravy was winey and rich and had good body. If you want to try Tyler's potato pancakes, his recipe looks very good.