Braised Brisket with Mushrooms -- The Love Letter Simmering on Every Sukkot Table

Sukkot. The harvest festival. Marvin built the sukkah in the backyard, as he does every year, with the engineering precision of an accountant and the aesthetic sense of a man who has been told by his wife for thirty-four years that the sukkah needs more decorations. He builds it. I decorate it. This is the arrangement. He nails boards and stretches canvas. I hang the dried corn and the paper chains that David and Rebecca made as children, which are yellowed and fragile now but which I will use until they disintegrate, because these chains were made by small hands that are now adult hands, and that is the whole point of Sukkot: the temporary structure, the fragile beauty, the reminder that nothing lasts but everything matters.

We ate dinner in the sukkah on Thursday evening — just Marvin and me, under the stars that are visible through the gaps in the roof. This is how a sukkah works: the roof must be imperfect, must let in the sky, must remind you that shelter is not about walls but about faith. I made stuffed cabbage — holishkes, the Ashkenazi name, sweet with tomato and raisins the way Sylvia made them, the way her mother made them in Poland, the way Jewish women have been rolling meat into cabbage leaves since the invention of cabbage, which I believe predates the invention of most things worth inventing.

Ethan and Sophie came down with David and Jennifer on Saturday. Ethan was fascinated by the sukkah — he walked in and out of it fourteen times, because a two-year-old understands the magic of a room that is outside. Sophie sat in her carrier and looked up at the sky through the roof gaps and did not cry, which I interpreted as spiritual receptivity. Jennifer, diplomatically, said it might have been gas. I prefer my interpretation.

I wrote about Sukkot on the blog — about how this holiday is the most honest of the Jewish holidays because it forces you to sit in a temporary structure and eat dinner and acknowledge that all structures are temporary, all homes are temporary, all lives are temporary, and the meal you eat tonight under the stars is no less sacred for being fleeting. In fact, it may be more sacred. The temporary things are the ones we hold most carefully. The meal in the sukkah, the childhood of a grandchild, the years with a husband who builds you a sukkah every October and means it as a love letter in plywood.

Marvin, eating stuffed cabbage under the stars, said, "This sukkah is getting worse every year." I said, "It's getting better." We were both right. The boards are more weathered. The decorations are more faded. The love is more visible. Everything wears down except the things that matter, and the things that matter shine brighter for the wearing.

The sukkah meal that year called for something that could sit and braise slowly while Marvin and I argued about the structural integrity of the roof — something that gets better the longer you leave it alone, the way a marriage does, the way a holiday does when you stop performing it and start living it. Brisket is the most honest meat I know: it starts tough, it asks for time, and it rewards patience with tenderness. This one, braised low and slow with mushrooms until the whole kitchen smelled like every October we’ve ever had, felt exactly right for a night spent eating under borrowed stars.

Braised Brisket with Mushrooms

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 3 hours 15 minutes | Total Time: 3 hours 35 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 4 lbs beef brisket, flat cut
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 large yellow onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 lb cremini or baby bella mushrooms, thickly sliced
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 cup crushed tomatoes
• 1 cup beef broth (or chicken broth)
• 1/2 cup dry red wine (optional, but recommended)
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme (or 1/2 tsp dried)
• 1 bay leaf
• Fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped, for serving

Instructions

1. Preheat and season. Preheat oven to 325°F. Pat brisket thoroughly dry with paper towels. Rub all over with salt, pepper, and paprika.
2. Sear the brisket. Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add brisket fat-side down and sear undisturbed for 4–5 minutes until deeply browned. Flip and sear the other side for 3–4 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
3. Build the base. Reduce heat to medium. Add onions to the same pot and cook, stirring occasionally, for 6–8 minutes until softened and beginning to turn golden. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more.
4. Cook the mushrooms. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8–10 minutes until they release their liquid and it evaporates. The pot should look dry before moving on.
5. Add the tomato and liquid. Stir in tomato paste and cook for 1 minute. Pour in crushed tomatoes, broth, and wine if using. Stir to combine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Nestle in thyme sprigs and bay leaf.
6. Braise low and slow. Return brisket to the pot, fat-side up, pressing it into the liquid. The liquid should come about halfway up the meat. Cover tightly with a lid (or foil, then lid) and transfer to the oven. Braise for 3 to 3 1/2 hours, until the meat is completely tender and yields easily when pressed.
7. Rest and slice. Transfer brisket to a cutting board and rest for 10 minutes. Remove thyme sprigs and bay leaf from the sauce. Slice brisket against the grain into 1/4-inch slices. Return slices to the pot, spooning sauce over the top.
8. Serve. Ladle brisket and mushroom sauce into a deep serving dish. Scatter fresh parsley over the top. Serve with egg noodles, roasted potatoes, or challah to catch every drop of the sauce.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 375 | Protein: 44g | Fat: 17g | Carbs: 9g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 430mg