Behold, one of my greatest comfort foods. Who doesn’t love a hunk of red meat braised for hours in a mixture of tomato products and onions? Well, I guess there are a lot of people who don’t, but if you don’t eat meat this is probably not the blog for you.
All you need to make this delicious is time. Normally, when I know I will have a day off of work during the week I will plan to make a roast or brisket since I know I will have enough time to cook it properly. It is always a treat to have a home cooked roast like this during the week, especially in the winter. This particular recipe has been in my family for many years and is part of our traditional Jewish holiday meal, which also includes a noodle kugel that I will post about another time.
This is so easy to make. It is virtually impossible to mess up unless you don’t give it enough time to cook. Brisket is a tough cut of meat, so it really needs that time in the oven to tenderize.
My Grandma’s Beef Brisket
serves 4 hungry people
1 3-4lb Beef Brisket
2 large onions
1 family size/large can Campbell’s condensed tomato soup
1 32 oz can crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce
garlic powder
salt & pepper
Preheat oven to 350F. Pat the Brisket dry and season liberally on both sides with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Place fat side up in a large dutch oven or deep aluminum roasting pan.
Slice your onions into half moons and place over the top of the brisket.
Add the condensed soup and crushed tomatoes to the pot, then add up to 1 whole soup can of water. Mix it around a bit, lifting up the meat to get some of the sauce underneath.
Cover and cook, ideally for 4 – 4 1/2 hours.
The longer it cooks the better it will be. I like my brisket to fall apart when I eat it (no knife necessary), but depending on your preference you can adjust the cooking time. However, for this size brisket I think it needs a minimum of 3 1/2 hours.
This is what it looked like about 1 1/2 hours in:
This is the final product after about 4 hours of cook time: (note how some of the onions appear to have melted into the sauce – oh yeah)
Here you have a delicious roast and all you did was cut up some onions and open a few cans of tomatoes.