Beef Brisket Cherry Tomato Meat Sauce - Blending Low and Slow with Fresh and Fragrant

Pardon my Latin, but once in a while I like to shake up my meat sauce modus operandi, and this brightly colored beef brisket cherry tomato sauce recipe is an example. The video shows two major deviations to my usual ragu-how-to: I used beef brisket instead of chuck; and I used some fresh cherry tomatoes, instead of all canned product.

The result is a deeply flavored sauce, heavy with that special beefiness that only a brisket can bring. Despite being such a slowly cooked dish, the fragrant cherry tomatoes give the sauce a surprisingly bright, fresh flavor and glow.

The brisket does take a long time to cook, but all that connective tissue adds a certain body that I love in a meat sauce. I cheated here with some additional boneless beef short rib meat I had on hand, so feel free to add any tough, stewing cuts of beef.

As I mentioned in the video, if you haven't seen how we finish our pasta recipes around here, click on some of the links you'll see below the post, or in the pasta category, and watch the last steps.

Sauces like this should never be ladled over drained pasta! You need to let the hot pasta absorb some of the sauce before serving – so check it out, and enjoy!




Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 1/2 pounds beef brisket, cubed
1 teaspoon salt
1 qt chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 pint small, sweet cherry tomatoes
2 shallots, chopped
4-6 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3 1/2 cup prepared tomato sauce
2 tablespoon tomato paste
1/4 cup cream
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
hot red pepper flakes and/or cayenne to taste
1 pound penne pasta