Nach Waxman's Beef Brisket recipe (2024)

Over the holidays, we were in the U.S. to spend time with my family (and – gulp – to see my editor…), and I made brisket for Romain. He doesn’t like bœuf bourguignon, because it he says it’s always“dry,” so decided for a treat, I’dmake brisket, a beef dish thatis anything but.

Because I’m such a champ, I actually made it a few different times, because I had access to brisket meat, which becomes ridiculously tender when cooked over the course of several hours. The French are big eaters of beef, but beef in France is less-marbled, and the breeds are different (which is why some French restaurants and butchers are also offering importedbeef, often from America and Ireland), and after thefirst bite, he declared brisket the bestbeef dish he’s ever had. All I know is that I now have to make brisket more often, to keep the peace at home.

And I kept my word on that, and during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I made a brisket one last time for the year.(If you live in France, to find the French equivalent of brisket meat, check out my post on Homemade Corned Beef.)

I worked on a couple of recipes, oneusing vinegar, anotherusing beef stock. Doing some searching, I’ve seen brisket recipes that use everything from kimchi to red wine. And I was especially intrigued bythisBrisket in Sweet-and-Sour Sauce, which has both wine and Coca-Cola in it. But I know from taste-memory that none of my aunts, who were all-star brisket bakers, ever put wine (or fermented cabbage) in theirs, unless it was Manischewitz. Inwhich case, it washighly likely that theywanted to open the bottle “to take a snort,” as my grandmother would say when she drank her nightly glass – or glasses – of Scotch.

While havinglunch with a friend of mine while in New York, the subject of brisket came up, and she said, “You know what the secret to making the bestbrisket is? Use the same weightof onions as the weight of the beef…and a lot of fat.” And that made me think of Nach Waxman’s famous brisket recipe, which uses eight onions and zeroliquid.

It was a bit of a chore to chop all those onions up, although it was easier after I went to the market myself, after sendingRomain and he came back with petit*oignons, which I replaced with ones that size of American baseballs. Once I sliced them up (when he wasn’t looking), the rest was smooth sailing.

Since there’s no water, stock or wine added to this recipe, I wasn’t confidencethere would be enough liquid in the pot. But sure enough, when I liftedthe lid during cooking, the half-cooked slab of beef was already floating in a bath of sweet onion juices. And when I took a sip to check the seasoning, it tasted like the best French onion soup imaginable. I sliced the beef up, sneaking a few more sipsof the onion-rich broth, and put the slices of beef back in the pot to finish.

In addition to brisket, Romain learned about the wonders of fresh horseradish, which I’ve only seen themonce in Paris; my local supermarket hada Festival de Racines display, a cart of root-vegetables, and I noticeda few horseradish roots tucked in amongstthe parsnips and rutabagas, and snagged one of the craggyroots. (The cashier had no idea what it was.)

I can’t tell you where to get one nowadays in Paris, unless you have Alsatian friends who might be willing to send you onefrom Alsace. Otherwise, you can use the jarred stuff, which makes a zippysauce mixed with crème fraîche, or sour cream, to go along with the brisket.

Fortunately there’s no shortage of crème fraîche in France, which is sold in supermarkets assour cream is sold in the States. But I was at my fromagerie and got a tub from them. Theirs is extra, extra-thick, sticky, and so dense that you can barely drag a spoon through it. It’s pretty much heaven in a pot.

I grated up my raifort root and marinated it in vinegar, careful not to take too close of a sniff. I did that once by accident when I was grating some up in afood processor and the searing heat blastedright up through my sinuses, and permanently singed theback of my eyeballs. As tempting as it is to fully take in that glorious, fiery smell – I don’t recommend it.

I didn’t want to keep our brisket all to ourselves, so I invited friends for dinner, who are half-American, half-French. The dinner seemed to incorporate the best of both worlds, and good food tends to brings people together, no matter what cultures we’re from. It’s something we all seem to agree on. And in this case, everybody agreed: This recipe makes a great platter of brisket.