Brisket is a dish that is very familiar.  It’s served at almost every Jewish holiday dinner and everyone claims their recipe to be the best!  There are so many different ways to prepare it:  you can serve it in a sweet/sour sauce, with caramelized onions in a beef gravy, or how about smoked Texas-style?

I’m pretty true to my traditions and love brisket drenched in a sweet, tomato-based sauce.  This steps it up a bit by creating a barbecue sauce that has a smoky, sweet tone to it, using fire-roasted crushed tomatoes, dark brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce and liquid smoke.  Combine that all together and you get this wonderful smoked barbecue sauce!

To make this brisket, first sear it in a very hot skillet.  This will sear in the flavor, develop the color of the meat and caramelize the exterior.  Once it’s seared, transfer it to a slow cooker.  Add all of the sauce ingredients and let it go for a while.

If you have time, I would make it the day prior so that it can sit in the fridge overnight.  This does two things:  first, it allows the fat to congeal so that it is easily removed (see the above pictures) and second, a cold piece of brisket is much easier to slice the a hot piece.  You can slice it and then put it back in the same baking dish, pour the smoked bbq sauce over it and reheat the entire dish.  It is out of this world!

Serve it as a sandwich or as dinner along with Parmesan-Roasted Potatoes or Potato Latkes.