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Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Beef brisket

October 9, 2011 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

I always think of my good friend Susan who on 9/11, after the towers collapsed, was told to go home from work and was so distraught and didn’t know what to do, she chose to go to her butcher and bought a beef brisket; hoping to find solace in an enormous slab of beef. The very idea of brisket is comforting; it is a homey dish in my mind. However, every Jewish holiday I have attended, with accompanying brisket, has almost always fallen short of my juicy, tender beef idealization.

My husband was raised Jewish and brisket is a Rosh Hashanah staple. He did not want a New Year’s family dinner this year but I insisted we try to pull it together at the last minute, At 6:30 the night before, we decide to plunge in and purchase the meat – a six and a half pound brisket – for 5 of us! Yikes! Now we had to convince Zach to be home by 3:30 to put this baby in. After dinner on Tuesday night, I got to work on a marinade. Not liking the sound of any one recipe online, I proceeded to make up my own. So here we go. This was so delicious; I will make this again and again, even if it’s not a Jewish holiday. I wanted to drink the gravy and then put it on everything afterwards, it was that good.

passover-brisket-egg-noodles

MARINATED BEEF BRISKET

1 head of garlic, cloves peeled and minced
3 cups of chopped onions
1 1/2 cups red wine vinegar
1 1/2 cups dry red wine
3/4 cup Dijon mustard
1 can tomato paste
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4  cup soy sauce
2 tsp. Kosher salt
6 1/2 lb. beef brisket
3 – 4 plum tomatoes, cored and diced
4 carrots, peeled and cut into 1 1/4” pieces
3 medium red-skinned potatoes, cut in 1 1/4” chunks

Whisk together the garlic, onions, vinegar, red wine, mustard, tomato paste, brown sugar, soy sauce and salt in a very large bowl. Wash and dry the meat and submerge it in the marinade. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Turn it over in the morning.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Take meat out 45 minutes before putting in the oven. Place meat and 3/4 of the marinade in a covered pot or Dutch oven (Le Creuset is best). Discard the rest of the marinade. Roast for 3 hours Add carrots and potatoes. Cover again and at 3 1/2  hours, add tomatoes and cook for 45 minutes more. It should be fork tender.

Remove the meat to a platter. Take the vegetables out with a slotted spoon and surround the meat with them on the platter. Boil the marinade, skimming off all the grease that will form at the top as you rapidly boil for 20 minutes or so, until greaseless and slightly thickened.

Generously drizzle gravy over the meat and vegetables, garnish with parsley. Carve in 1/4” slices on an angle and serve. Pass extra gravy at the table.

You will be amazed.

Filed Under: Dinner, Meat Tagged With: 9/11, beef, brisket. Rosh Hashanah, comfort food, marinade, new Year's, red wine

Weeknight entertaining chicken

September 21, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

Buttermilk roasted chicken on a white platter.This is my son Zach’s favorite chicken. We make this over and over as you can get two recipes out of a quart of buttermilk and what else are you going to use that for? And buttermilk lasts a long time so you can do it 3 weeks apart. It is a take on a Nigella Lawson recipe as I have fiddled and changed it. Great for weeknight entertaining as you do the most work two days ahead of time. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do – and it’s super easy – with an easy clean-up to boot!

BUTTERMILK ROAST CHICKEN – serves 4
1 3.5-pound chicken
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon crushed black peppercorns, or 1 1/2 tsp. coarse ground pepper
1 tablespoon coarse sea salt
2 heaping tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves, roughly chopped
10 juniper berries, smashed
1 tablespoons honey

Butterfly chicken by placing breast side down and using heavy-duty kitchen or poultry shears to cut along both sides of backbone. Discard backbone, turn chicken over and press gently on the breastbone to flatten.

Place chicken in a large freezer bag. Add buttermilk, 1/4 cup oil, garlic, peppercorns, salt, rosemary, juniper berries and honey. Seal bag securely, massage all ingredients together and refrigerate for two days. Turn over and massage more during the two days, when you think about it.

Take chicken out of the refrigerator 30 – 45 minutes before roasting. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Line a roasting pan with foil and use a rack. Remove chicken from marinade and place on a rack in the roasting pan. Drizzle with remaining 2 tablespoons oil. Roast for 40 minutes, then reduce heat to 325 degrees. Continue roasting until well browned and your meat thermometer measures 155 – 160 degrees in thigh meat, about another 10 -15 minutes.

Remove chicken to a platter or carving board and allow to rest for at least 10 minutes before cutting into serving pieces.

Filed Under: Dinner, Poultry Tagged With: buttermilk, chicken, entertaining, marinade, roast, rosemary

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