Thai-Style Brisket

Late October and Halloween is approaching, which is not a holiday I grew up with — Halloween is not a Puerto Rican tradition, it is an American one, and my relationship with it has been the relationship of an immigrant: observant, participatory, but never quite native. I buy candy. I admire costumes. I do not understand the appeal of being scared for fun, because I have been scared for real — scared during María, scared during the pandemic, scared every time the phone rings at 3 AM — and recreational fear seems to me like recreational drowning: technically possible but why would you.

Lucas is going as a chef. Jenny sent a photo: Lucas in a white chef's hat made from paper and an apron that says KISS THE COOK, holding a wooden spoon like a scepter. I looked at the photo and called Jenny and said, He is not going as a chef. He is a chef. The costume is redundant. Jenny laughed. I was not entirely joking. That boy smashes tostones with the commitment of a professional. The form needs work. The spirit is right.

At the hospital, the second wave is peaking. Admissions are up thirty percent from September. My team is running extended shifts — twelve hours some days, the kitchen open from 5 AM to 9 PM, feeding patients and staff in a building that is once again too full of the wrong kind of energy. I am fifty-five years old and I stand for eight hours a day in non-slip shoes and a mask and I serve food and I manage people and I go home and I cook dinner and I fall asleep on the couch at 8:30 PM, which Eduardo pretends not to notice because noticing would mean acknowledging that I am tired and I do not acknowledge tired, I override tired, I have been overriding tired since 1987.

I made carne guisada this week — beef stew, braised, the way Mami made it on weeknights when she was tired and the stew could simmer while she sewed. The irony: I am tired. The stew can simmer while I sit. The chair at the kitchen island that Eduardo installed is becoming less optional and more necessary, and I sit in it more than I stand, and the sitting is not defeat, the sitting is strategy, the sitting is a woman who knows her body's limits negotiating with those limits rather than ignoring them.

I made carne guisada that week because it was what Mami made when she was too tired to stand over a pan — you build it, you cover it, you let it do its own work while you do yours. This Thai-style brisket is the same logic in a different accent: low heat, long time, almost nothing required of you after the first fifteen minutes. It is not Mami’s recipe, but it respects the same principle, and that principle is the one I needed most — that a good meal does not always require a woman on her feet.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 3 hrs 30 min | Total Time: 3 hrs 50 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

3 lbs beef brisket, trimmed
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
1 stalk lemongrass, bruised and cut into 3-inch pieces
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 can (13.5 oz) coconut milk
1 cup low-sodium beef broth
1 tablespoon red curry paste
2 medium carrots, cut into 1-inch pieces
Fresh cilantro and sliced scallions, for serving
Cooked jasmine rice, for serving

Instructions

Sear the brisket. Pat the brisket dry and season all over with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Sear the brisket 4–5 minutes per side until deeply browned. Transfer to a plate.
Build the base. Reduce heat to medium. Add the onion to the same pot and cook 3–4 minutes until softened. Add garlic, ginger, and lemongrass and stir 1 minute until fragrant.
Add the braising liquid. Stir in the red curry paste, then add the coconut milk, beef broth, fish sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar, and lime juice. Stir to combine and bring to a gentle simmer.
Braise low and slow. Return the brisket to the pot, nestling it into the liquid. Cover tightly, reduce heat to low, and braise for 3 hours — turning once halfway through — until the beef is fork-tender.
Add the carrots. In the last 30 minutes of braising, add the carrots to the pot, re-cover, and continue cooking until tender.
Rest and slice. Remove the brisket and let it rest 10 minutes before slicing against the grain. Discard the lemongrass. Skim any excess fat from the surface of the braising liquid.
Serve. Arrange sliced brisket over jasmine rice and spoon the braising sauce and carrots over the top. Garnish with fresh cilantro and scallions.

Nutrition (per serving)

Thai-Style Brisket — The Stew That Simmers While You Sit