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For years I was on the fence about holiday brisket, because most of the time, the meat that emerged from my Dutch oven would be dry, tough and stringy. Once in a while, however, the brisket would be sublime — succulent, tender, melt-in-your mouth decadence — and I’d fall for it all over again, only to be disappointed the next time. Same recipe with such wildly different results made me wonder what caused such variability.

I would ask fellow cooks and friends and, inevitably, get the same answer: With brisket, you just never know how it’s going to turn out. For a long time, I believed it and even abandoned brisket entirely in favor of pot roast, which I found to be more reliably tender. But with time, I started to suspect there had to be a better answer.

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While no two cuts of meat will be exactly the same, the path to tender brisket starts with important choices at the meat counter — and an understanding of some science.

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Brisket is a pectoral muscle of the cow, covering the breastbone, between the foreleg and the short ribs (flanken), another popular Ashkenazi cut. Each animal provides two briskets and, according to Craig “Meathead” Goldwyn of the site AmazingRibs.com and author of “Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling,” because cows have no collarbones, these muscles bear about 60 percent of the animal’s weight (over 1,000 pounds) and do a lot of work. That results in lots of springy connective tissue in and around the muscle fibers, which is what makes them so tough. To break down those connective tissues made of collagen, convert them to unctuous gelatin and coax the meat to become tender, you want to cook it low and slow.

Goldwyn recommends that you buy the best-quality brisket you can afford, either USDA Choice, USDA Prime or wagyu, and look for a slab with the most visible marbling. If brisket isn’t labeled, it’s likely USDA Select, and Goldwyn recommends skipping it if possible due to lower marbling and less flavor.

While a whole, untrimmed brisket weighs around 14 pounds, in the United States, it is often sold in halves: either the first cut, a cross between a square and an oval, leaner, and also known as the “flat”; and the second cut, also known as the “point,” which is thicker, fattier and more flavorful. You want the point. If a visual helps, the flat cut is, well, flatter, while the point has a mound on it, like a hill, that is — if you squint at it — pointy. The latter won’t lie as tidily in your Dutch oven, nor will it slice as beautifully as a flat cut, but where it gives up on looks it delivers on flavor. You can buy a whole brisket, but that’s difficult to cook in a home kitchen.

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With brisket in hand, you need to decide how to cook it. Your best bet is to braise it slowly in the oven. The Cook’s Illustrated book “The New Best Recipe” recommends 300 degrees; higher temperatures can turn the simmering liquid to boiling, which will dry out the meat. Lower temperatures just add unnecessary hours to the cooking time. Check on your brisket midway through cooking — if you see the liquid at a lively bubble, lower the heat a bit and check again. You want to see small gentle bubbles, Goldwyn says.

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A meat thermometer, preferably with a probe and cord that connects to a digital display is, according to Goldwyn, a cook’s best tool for success. When the internal temperature of the meat reaches around 200 degrees — don’t let it go above 205, Goldwyn says — your brisket is ready. For a 5-pound brisket in roughly 3 cups of liquid with some vegetables surrounding it, it takes about 4 hours. Focus on the temperature and not the time it will take to cook, Goldwyn emphasizes.

For additional flavor, Goldwyn suggests salting your meat the night before to let the salt penetrate the meat cells. I also rub my brisket in freshly ground black pepper, but, unlike salt, that seasons only the outside of the meat.

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The recipe I share below comes from my mother-in-law, Shelley, who got it from her mother-in-law, Sylvia. The original recipe is rich in ketchup and onions, with carrots and potatoes creating a stew of sorts. According to Gil Marks’s “Encyclopedia of Jewish Food,” “Ashkenazic brisket is always made with onions, and plenty of them. After the mid-19th century, potatoes and carrots were frequently added to provide more sustenance.” In the 20th century, Marks notes, American Jews started adding commercial condiments, such as “canned cranberry sauce, onion soup mix and/or chili sauce,” or in Sylvia’s case, ketchup.

In my adaptation, I added garlic and onion powders as well as a little beef stock for a deeper flavor. The fussiest part of the recipe is chilling everything and then removing the fat before reheating and pureeing the sauce. The ingredients are likely in your cupboard, and besides the meat, the remaining players are budget-friendly.

With Rosh Hashanah just around the corner, as you put together your holiday menu, give this brisket a try. After trying dozens of brisket recipes, I always come back to this one, which remains my favorite — and by a long shot. It may not be highbrow, but it’s darn delicious.

correction

A previous version of this article incorrectly said the brisket cut called the point is also known as the deckle. In fact, the deckle is technically a layer of hard fat, but according to Meathead Goldwyn, the term is used inconsistently by many butchers and chefs and has no reliable definition.

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Get the recipe: High Holiday Brisket

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