With the holidays upon us, brisket seems inevitable. Got into a discussion about a brisket dinner my Mom attended two nights back. Seems her host made a sweet version. Our family's traditional brisket has always been strictly savory - but I've often heard of sweet versions. Tonight, I decided to create a hybrid.
Best available 3 lb first cut brisket
Rub: Kosher salt and pepper melange du jour (previously discussed here (toward end of post)) + a tablespoon or so of paprika ( I used mostly sweet Hungarian + a little Smoked Spanish)
3 lbs yellow onions, sliced thinly
4 medium cloves garlic
5 medium carrots, cut into 1" pieces
6 ounces (ok, a cup wouldn't hurt) of Off-Dry (not sweet, not bone-dry) Alsatian Riesling
A cup of pitted prunes
A tablespoon or so of concentrated veal or beef demi-glace if you have it.
Procedure:
Heat oven to 325 (convection) or 350 conventional.
Rub brisket and then sear on both sides with a little oil in heavy enameled dutch oven (top off, on the stovetop). Reserve meat.
Add sliced onions and whole garlic cloves, agitate to deglaze. Season with salt and pepper melange.
When onions get going, add meat back in, arranging the onion mixture so it surrounds and covers the meat.
Add carrots, prunes, and wine.
Cover and place in the oven for about an hour.
At one hour, turn the meat, and rearrange vegetables to cover. Continue braising another 90 minutes.
At 2 1/2 hours total time, remove meat and reserve.
Add demi-glace if available and stir to incorporate.
Puree the vegetables, fruit, and liquid right in the pan with an immersion blender.
If you didn't use the demi-glace, you may need to correct the color. You can do this with something like gravy master or more paprika or achiote or whatever makes sense. Of course, with the carrots and prunes in this, you might be fine with no help.
Reintroduce the meat, cover all sides with your wonderfully thickened gravy, put the top back on and return to oven for another 20 minutes.
Finally, slice across the grain and serve well sauced. Accompany with something that likes gravy like white rice.
Discussion:
This gravy is still mostly about onions and the liberal use of the pepper melange makes it slightly spicy. But the fruity wine, carrots and prunes pull it toward, but not all the way to, sweet. If you come from the really sweet brisket tradition (I understand, for example, quite a few people use Coke in theirs) you certainly won't think this is sweet. It ends up being not overtly sweet, but very rich. We served a Montes Apalta Cabernet Carmenere. This picked up the both black fruit and the onion driven edge in the sauce nicely.
Showing posts with label brisket. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brisket. Show all posts
Friday, September 14, 2007
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
It will be cold again someday - so Brisket
Hard to believe at this time of year - but I'm thinking about brisket. This is one of those comfort foods for which many families have their own cherished heirloom recipe. The basic technique is usually similar, but the sauces and flavors vary broadly. Sadly, this once regular feature of home cooking has become a special occasion item in many families and virtually disappeared for many others. It's too good and too easy to let it slip away. And the leftovers make amazing sandwiches. Here's one version based on my Mom's instructions:
Brisket, onions, salt, pepper, garlic, paprika (and many optional additions)
Buy a good "first cut" brisket she says.
Make a rub of kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, minced fresh garlic, and paprika and rub the brisket all over. (a little oil in the rub makes this easier. And many other spices or herbs can be included if desired.)
Slice a lot of yellow onions fairly thin. How much is a lot? More than you think - enough to completely surround and heavily cover the entire piece of meat once you get things going. Generally this puts your weight of onions on the way to that of the meat.
Find a heavy bottomed pan (one for which you have a tight-fitting lid) big enough to lay the brisket down in with some room around the edges, put in a little oil, and set over a medium-high burner.
Once the pan is up to temp, brown the meat well on all sides. (some would argue that this procedure can be improved by omitting the garlic from the rub so as to avoid any burned garlic. This is a reasonable point although it varies from Mom's approach. Come to think of it, in the good old days, she was probably using garlic powder rather than fresh so maybe that's why she put the garlic on early. Anyway, if you omit the garlic at this point, add crushed cloves to taste in with the onions later.)
Once browned, add the whole pile of onions to the pot. Surround and cover the meat completely with onions. Cover the pot and reduce heat to simmer.
The time required will vary with the size of your brisket and so on - but in any case it will take quite a while to cook - certainly 90 minutes and likely more. I suggest carefully flipping the brisket after about an hour. As the brisket and onions cook, the onions will create moisture and your brisket will braise. Eventually the onions will become very soft. Eventually your brisket will be done. There's a fairly broad window between done enough and really too far gone. Better to give it a bit more time if you're not sure. If you pull it too soon, it won't be tender.
That's about all there is to it if you want to leave things basic. Taste and correct seasoning in gravy along the way and again close to the end. When done and briefly rested, slice thin to medium across the grain and serve with gravy (and something to soak up gravy like rice or good bread).
Options:
Add some diced carrots along with onions - or later on if you prefer them to retain their identity.
Additional spices or aromatics in rub or later - use your imagination.
Wine in the pot at any time after browning - a good dry, but not too dry, white with some "bottom" to it. What's bottom? The point here is you don't want something too squeaky clean, steely, edgy, showing fruit only. You want some wood, or some malolactic, or some lees or something.
Puree the onion gravy just prior to the end. If necessary, correct color (as the resulting slurry can be unappealing in tone) with e.g. some added paprika.
Braise in the oven instead of on the stove-top.
Mushrooms? Sweet peppers? Shallots? Hots? Sour cream? You name it. Brisket is a great platform for playing around - brown, braise, and binge.
Brisket, onions, salt, pepper, garlic, paprika (and many optional additions)
Buy a good "first cut" brisket she says.
Make a rub of kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, minced fresh garlic, and paprika and rub the brisket all over. (a little oil in the rub makes this easier. And many other spices or herbs can be included if desired.)
Slice a lot of yellow onions fairly thin. How much is a lot? More than you think - enough to completely surround and heavily cover the entire piece of meat once you get things going. Generally this puts your weight of onions on the way to that of the meat.
Find a heavy bottomed pan (one for which you have a tight-fitting lid) big enough to lay the brisket down in with some room around the edges, put in a little oil, and set over a medium-high burner.
Once the pan is up to temp, brown the meat well on all sides. (some would argue that this procedure can be improved by omitting the garlic from the rub so as to avoid any burned garlic. This is a reasonable point although it varies from Mom's approach. Come to think of it, in the good old days, she was probably using garlic powder rather than fresh so maybe that's why she put the garlic on early. Anyway, if you omit the garlic at this point, add crushed cloves to taste in with the onions later.)
Once browned, add the whole pile of onions to the pot. Surround and cover the meat completely with onions. Cover the pot and reduce heat to simmer.
The time required will vary with the size of your brisket and so on - but in any case it will take quite a while to cook - certainly 90 minutes and likely more. I suggest carefully flipping the brisket after about an hour. As the brisket and onions cook, the onions will create moisture and your brisket will braise. Eventually the onions will become very soft. Eventually your brisket will be done. There's a fairly broad window between done enough and really too far gone. Better to give it a bit more time if you're not sure. If you pull it too soon, it won't be tender.
That's about all there is to it if you want to leave things basic. Taste and correct seasoning in gravy along the way and again close to the end. When done and briefly rested, slice thin to medium across the grain and serve with gravy (and something to soak up gravy like rice or good bread).
Options:
Add some diced carrots along with onions - or later on if you prefer them to retain their identity.
Additional spices or aromatics in rub or later - use your imagination.
Wine in the pot at any time after browning - a good dry, but not too dry, white with some "bottom" to it. What's bottom? The point here is you don't want something too squeaky clean, steely, edgy, showing fruit only. You want some wood, or some malolactic, or some lees or something.
Puree the onion gravy just prior to the end. If necessary, correct color (as the resulting slurry can be unappealing in tone) with e.g. some added paprika.
Braise in the oven instead of on the stove-top.
Mushrooms? Sweet peppers? Shallots? Hots? Sour cream? You name it. Brisket is a great platform for playing around - brown, braise, and binge.
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