Moroccan brisket, fartaytscht und farbessert

I posted an earlier, somewhat easier version of this recipe here.  Sometimes, though, it you are going to take on a brisket, which can be a formidable challenge to both wallet and health, you should really do it the best way possible, so I urge you to try it this way.  It is slightly but not much more difficult and basically just adds a browning step, but it is much much better.  We had it for Shabbat dinner
over Pesach and everyone agreed that it was worth the effort, which was my effort in any case.  I make this with a smaller cut of meat, which serves 6.  You can increase the quantity as long as you have a large covered roaster that will hold it in one layer.  I cooked it in a very large dutch oven.

Moroccan-style brisket

Ingredients

• 3-4 pounds brisket, preferably second cut, or deckel
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 4 large onions, halved and sliced
• 4-6 cloves garlic, sliced
• salt, about 1 teaspoon
• pinch baking soda, optional
• Spice mix: 1 teaspoon  fine, freshly ground black pepper, 1.5 teaspoons ground ginger (fresh is very un-Moroccan), 1. teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground cumin,  1 teaspoons of Aleppo or Kirmiz pepper (or a mixture of sweet and hot paprika, since the other peppers are probably not available kosher for Pesach)
• 20 pitted dates
• 2 oranges, cut into eighths
• 12 ounces merguez sausage  (available K for P)
• 1/4 cup orange juice or water
• 4-6 carrots, cleaned and cut into 2-3 inch lengths

Method 

1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees.
2. Dry the meat, heat the oil in a large casserole, and brown the meat in the oil on both sides.  It will probably take around 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, slice the onions and garlic and make the spice mixture.
4. When the meat is brown, remove and set aside, and add the onions to the fat in the pan.  Add the salt, and the pinch of baking soda (which will help them to brown more quickly).  Cook for about 10 minutes on medium until most of the liquid evaporates and the onions begin to brown.
5. Add garlic and saute for another minute.
6. Add spice mix, turn heat to low, and cook for about two minutes.  If the onions seem try, add about 1/4 cup water and deglaze the pan to dissolve the tasty crust forming.
7. Put the brisket back in the pan, and distribute the onions so that they are more or less evenly distributed on beneath and on top of the meat.
8. Surround meat with the dates and oranges (and if you like them super tender, the carrots),  cover the casserole, and let it heat for about 5 minutes.
9. Put the casserole in the oven and cook for two hours.
10. While the meat is cooking cut the merguez sausage and brown in a skillet.
11. Set aside, pour out the fat, and deglaze with the orange juice or water  Cook until reduced by around half.  
12. Taste the brisket for salt and add a bit more if needed, remembering that the merguez will add more salt. 
13. Top the brisket with the carrots, the merguez pieces, pour in the juice, cover and bake for another 1.5 to 2 hours until the meat is tender.
14. To serve, slice the meat across the grain on the bias. Place on a large deep platter and surround with dates, carrots, merguez and orange pieces. Taste the juices for salt and add a bit if necessary. If there are lots of juices and they are very thin, reduce them a bit, and pour over the meat. 
15. Serve with rice, quinoa, couscous or mashed potatoes to around 6 people or 4 teens.  This is also nice with some harissa or even Sriracha for those who like it spicy. 

This can be made in advance, but my preference is not to slice the meat until after you reheat it. Otherwise, it just takes like leftovers.

The meat:  Best for this is a nice fatty cut, like 2nd cut brisket or deckel.  I have made it with first cut brisket to my regret-- it is really too dry.  Your cardiologist will not approve, but how often do you eat brisket?  You might as well enjoy it.  If you can find beef cheeks, they would also probably work well in this recipe, though I have never cooked with them.  If it does end up dry, which may happen if you use a first cut, be particularly careful in the slicing.  Use a very long, very sharp carving knife, hold the meat down firmly with a large fork, and carve of thin (I am talking 1/8 inch here) about 20 degrees off the horizontal,  You will end up with large thin slices.  Topped with the juices, you will be able to pretend that they are not dry.

Grandma Jenny's stuffed cabbage

My father's mother was a fabulous cook of the Litvak variety.   There are many recipes for stuffed cabbage (in our family, holishkes or gewicklete kroyt) out there.  What made hers so much better than the others?  I think there are three "secrets":  she put flanken and/or stew meat and soup bones in the pot, which added a lot of flavor and richness to the sauce;  she used sour salt (citric acid) and NEVER vinegar or lemon juice to make it sour since you want the pure sweet and sour flavor and not the taste of vinegar or lemon; and   she added prunes to the pot, which made the sauce richer and tastier.

My grandmother's cabbage recipe died with her.  Barbara, my cousin Lonnie's wife, sat with her one afternoon to try to learn how to make it, but didn't get too far.  My grandmother was not a great teacher, and the concept of measuring ingredients was as foreign to her as the Queen's English.   I have tinkered with the recipe over the years, and found a lot of help in Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking , particularly in getting the sweet/sour balance of the sauce right, but departed from it in significant ways, especially in the use of bones and prunes.  Making this is a labor of love, with the accent on both labor and love, but well worth the effort. 

Stuffed Cabbage

Ingredients

Filling

• 2 to 2 1/2 pounds ground beef (not too lean -- chuck works well)
• 1/2 cup rice, boiled for 3 minutes (I like short grain pudding or risotto rice, but Carolina will work as well;  just avoid fragrant rices like jasmine or basmati)
• 3 eggs
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups breadcrumbs (challah crumbs from last week's bread are best, but panko or any old breadcrumbs will suffice)
• 2 onions, coarsely grated
• Salt and pepper (depending on the quantity of meat and whether it is kosher, 2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon of salt and about 40 grinds of a pepper mill;  use less if you are unsure and test as below)

Sauce

• 28 ounce can tomato puree
• 1 teaspoon sour salt 
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup to 1 cup water or stock

For assembling the dish

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 heads of cabbage (you should be safe with one 4-5 pounder and one 3 pounder)
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 6 pieces flanken, about 2 pounds -OR- 1 to 1 1/2 pounds meaty soup bones and 1-2 pounds of stewing beef
• 1 pound pitted prunes

 Method:

1. Soften the cabbage leaves by your favorite method (either freezing and defrosting, blanching, or microwaving -- all are described following the recipe). I prefer freezing and defrosting.  Since you never know exactly how many usable leaves a cabbage will yield, I think it is a good idea to have two on hand.  You don't want to be caught short.
2. Set aside the larger cabbage leaves for stuffing, and the center of the cabbage and smaller leaves for the pot. You should have between 15-20 large leaves.
3. To make the filling, put the beef in a very large bowl, and make a hollow in the middle of it.  Break the eggs into the hollow and beat.  Add the remaining ingredients.  I prefer the full amount of salt and pepper, but you might want to cut down.  Mix well with your hands and set aside.  If you do not trust your instincts on seasoning, take a small piece and fry it quickly in a nonstick skillet and taste.  Adjust salt and pepper accordingly.
4. Combine the ingredients for the sauce and set aside.
5. Take a large, heavy ovenproof 6 to 8 quart casserole and oil it with the vegetable oil. 
6. Shred the reserved inner leaves of the cabbage as well as any torn leaves.
7. Set the shredded cabbage, chopped onions, prunes and meat on a cutting board in separate piles.
8. Preheat your oven to 275 degrees.
9. Put about 1/3 of the shredded cabbage and chopped onions in the bottom of the casserole.  Arrange 3 pieces of flanken (or the soup bones) on the bottom.
10. Stuff the cabbage leaves, starting with the largest leaves.  Lay a leaf on a cutting board with the top closest to you and the rib away from you.  If the rib is still very tough, cut it out.  (I find that this is less likely to happen with frozen defrosted leaves.) Take a small handful of beef and form it into a meat ingot of about 2 inches by 1 inch by 3/4 inch. Place it near the top of the cabbage leaf about 1inch from the end.  Fold the end of the cabbage over the ingot, and then fold over the two sides.  Roll the leaf up.  You should have a fairly compact roll. 
11. As each roll is done, place it in the pot to make one layer.  You will probably have about 8 rolls.  As the leaves get smaller, you will use somewhat less meat for each.
12. Scatter 1/2 of the prunes on top, and then top with 1/3 of the cabbage and chopped onions.  Put the remaining flanken or stew meat on top, and then arrange the remaining rolls on top.  If you have any meat filling left, you can either make them into meatballs and add them to the pot if there is room (they benefit from a quick browning first) or make them into old-fashioned hamburgers which are best pan-fried and served well-done. 
13. Top with the remaining prunes, cabbage and onions.
14. Pour the sauce ingredients over the stuffed cabbage.  It should come nearly to the top.  If not, add some water.
15. Place a  lightly oiled heatproof plate slightly smaller than the diameter of the pot over the cabbage.  This will weigh down the rolls slightly and improve their texture. 
16. Bring the pot slowly to the boil, cover, and then transfer to the oven.  If your pot is very full, put a pan that is larger than the casserole on a lower shelf in the oven.  Put some cold water in the pan.  This will catch boilovers and prevent you oven from smoking up and your fire alarm from going off. 
17. Cook for 3 hours. 
18. Take it out and cool off before refrigerating.
19. Reheat in the oven for a long time before serving 8 as a main course and 12-15 as an appetizer.  My grandmother would usually serve it with mashed potatoes or rice, but I think that all it needs is some challah to soak up the juices. 

Preparing the cabbage:  Although it takes planning, I find that freezing and defrosting the cabbage works best.  Start by removing the outer leaves of the cabbage.  I have read that the heads are so tight that this will remove any dirt, and that you actually add more contaminants by rinsing it with tap water at this point.  Who knows?  Core the cabbages carefully (you don't want to mess up too many leaves) and place in the freezer.  This takes up a lot of room, so be prepared.  Freeze for about 2 days, and then defrost in your refrigerator for about two days before proceeding with the recipe.  Alternatively, place one cored cabbage in a large pot, add boiling water, and after 5 minutes remove it and peel off those leaves which you can.  Replace the cabbage in the pot and continue until the leaves are too small to stuff.  You an also microwave the cabbage in a large microwave-safe dish for about 8 minutes, remove, peel off the leaves, and then return and zap some more.  I think that you can see why I prefer the freezing method, even if it takes up a lot of valuable freezer real estate and is a bit mafia-ish, sort of like having a head in your freezer. 

The meat:  To me, this is the key to the dish.  In addition to enhancing the flavor and texture, you have a good amount of meat that you can serve to those who claim not to like cabbage.  My grandmother would always use flanken but this was before chefs had discovered short ribs and it was considered a budget cut.  I find that meaty soup bones sold but kosher butchers are often bony flanken at less than half the price, and I use that for the bone layer.  For the meat layer, I would recommend chuck or kalechal, or even brisket if you can find it at a good price.

Sauce variations: I prefer scant, thicker sauce.  If you prefer a thinner one, substitute about 1 quart tomato juice for the puree and water.  You can use raisins if you must, but you will be missing out on the true experience.

Yemenite Beef and Potato Stew for Passover and Year Round

(I originally posted this in 2011 -- hear are some update notes from 2018:  We served this stew for the first seder this year and it was a big hit.  Because many people prefer chicken to beef, we used the chicken thighs instead of the beef bones, and came to the conclusion that the flavor was better, and the bone-in chicken also added a gelatinous richness to the sauce that was perhaps better than the version with beef bones or short ribs.   So, I added the option of chicken back into the recipe.  Also, we noticed that a freshly opened, new package of cumin bought for Passover made a real difference -- so make sure that your spices are fresh.)

It is a little late to be posting this recipe.  Pesach is almost over, and the temperature is approaching 70 degrees, and this dish is both Passover and cold weather food.  I have never figured out why countries like Yemen and Brazil make such wonderful rib-sticking cold weather dishes.  My recipe is adapted from the one in Faye Levy's International Jewish Cookbook , which is one of those rare cookbooks where all the recipes are good.  I have yet to make anything from there that hasn't been wonderful, but of all the recipes, this may be our favorite.

Our seders tend not to be gefilte fish, soup and kneidlach and brisket affairs.  People get that elsewhere and on other nights, and have come to expect other things from us.  So this was our main dish, and we have been eating it for dinner on and off since the beginning of the holiday.  The main challenge in making this was in adapting it for my garlic-o-phobe mother, so we did a trial run a few weeks before the holiday and much to my surprise, we didn't miss the garlic.  Also, Levy used a combination of beef and chicken and I find that the chicken gets too overcooked, so I substitute short ribs, which also give the sauce a lot of richness.  I also eliminate the water to concentrate the flavors and make it easier to serve on plates. (You may have to add water depending on the moisture of the other ingredients.)  Finally, I serve it with a fresh chutney of cilantro, chili, walnuts and fruit which livens it all up.

This is a great one-dish meal any time of year.  The potatoes soak up the flavor of the sauce.  It can be reheated many times.  And though it takes a few hours to cook, it requires very little work.  The hardest thing is peeling the potatoes:

Yemenite Beef and Potato Stew

serves 8-10

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 very large onion, chopped
• 8-15 cloves garlic, sliced (optional -- one day I will do a side by side test)
• 2-3 tablespoons ground cumin
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• salt to taste
• 2-3  tablespoons tomato paste
• 14 ounce can diced tomatoes , drained (or half of a larger can)
• handful chopped flat leaf parsley
• 2-3 pounds beef stew (chuck or shank) cut into chunks if possible
• 2 pounds meaty beef bones, short ribs or flanken
• 8-10 medium red potatoes, peeled
• 3-4 chicken thighs, skinned if desired (recommended if not using beef bones)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
2. Saute onion in oil in a very large casserole (the largest flame and ovenproof one you have, 7 quarts or larger ) until soft but not browned.
3. Add garlic if using and saute for a minute.
4. Add spices and saute on low for about three minutes, stirring.
5. Add tomato paste, stir, and then add tomatoes and parsley.
6. Mix in stew meat, short ribs and potatoes, bring to a simmer, cover and put in the oven.
7. Bake for 1 hour.
8. Add chicken if using, pushing it down into the sauce.  Cook for 2 more hours.
9. That's it.  You can hold the dish for another hour or two in a turned off or low oven.
10. Serve with green walnut fruit chutney (recipe below), harissa or  schug (Yemenite hot sauce).  Although it doesn't need it, this goes very well with rice (we are enthusiastic kitniyot eaters) and also with quinoa.  

Green Walnut Chutney:  Put a handful of walnuts, a sliced green chili (I used a serrano with the seeds still in for heat), a small peeled, cored chopped granny smith apple, a peeled clementine (check for seeds), a handful of cilantro and a large pinch of salt into a blender or small processor.  Process until smooth.  You can substitute other nuts or leave them out altogether, but I find that they both give the chutney substance and keep it from turning dark.  Use this within a few days.

Making Semur Daging (Indonesian Beef Stew) in Jerusalem

What makes a Jewish dish, or a dish Jewish?  There are certain obvious constraints -- kashrut, cooking prohibitions on the Sabbath, demands of certain festivals -- that help to determine the contours within which Jewish dishes are developed.  Then there is the influence of the local country, culture and economy.  Jewish families would often employ local non-Jews as cooks or maids, and this is one way that local dishes became Judaized.  Jews (and right-thinking people everywhere) make stuffed cabbage, but what a Hungarian will serve you is very different from what you will get in a Litvak home.  Gil Marks (I think) has said that Jewish food is food that is part of a Jewish life, and is used to mark special Jewish occasions.  In our family, that means that Semur Daging (Indonesian beef stew cooked with sweet soy sauce) is a Jewish dish.  How did this happen?

We wanted to make something special for Shabbat dinner the Friday after President Obama was elected in 2008, and in view of the time he spent in Indonesia (where his mother worked on microfinance and women's economic development for the Ford Foundation, where I also used to work) we tried Copeland Marks' recipe for this stew from his now out-of-print book The Indonesian Kitchen.    It soon became one of Harry's favorites dishes, and he requests when pressed on birthdays and other special occasions, like Rosh HaShanah or his last Friday night dinner at home before leaving for Israel last August.  It has become domesticated as one of our Jewish dishes, so to speak. Harry likes it so much that he wanted a recipe that he can use once he is living in an apartment in Jerusalem, beginning March 1.  So, this recipe is for him and his friends Zach Zimmerman, Seth Englebourg and Rachel Aronson in the hope that they will cook it for themselves.  (I hope that this qualifies as a sufficient shout-out.)

I have made a number of changes in the recipe. I eliminated the water that Marks calls for and and added some bones to make the sauce richer, substituted shallots for onions when they are handy, added a fresh hot red pepper and or a bruised stalk of lemon grass when one is around since it provides a nice contrast to the sweetness of the stew, and cooked it much longer and slower to make the beef really tender.  Those of you have one might want to try it in a slow cooker.  It is extremely easy since the meat doesn't need to be browned. 

If you want to make this in Jerusalem, or somewhere else other than New York (I don't mean to channel the famous Steinberg cartoon here, but it is sort of unavoidable) you may find it hard to find some of the ingredients:  laos, known in English to the extent that it is known at all, as galingal; kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce), and salaam leaf, which even I usually leave out.  Some of the spices, like cloves and nutmeg, are available under the Israeli label Pereg, so they must be available in Jerusalem as well.  There is a population of Thai guest workers in Israel, so they may be able to find galingal (known as kha in Thai) in one of their markets.  Its Arabic name is kholanjian so you may also be able to find it in an Arab spice market.  A Thai market will certainly have lemongrass.  You are on your own for salaam leaves, which I generally leave out.  The key ingredient that you may not be able to find is kecap manis, Indonesian sweet soy sauce. Friends of ours are going to Jerusalem for a wedding the week after Purim and offered to take things over for Harry.  I thought about having them carry over some kecap manis  (and galingal) but was worried about what would happen at airport security and customs.  Instead, Amy and I tried out numerous possible substitutes and found a mixture of dark soy sauce and sugar to be an adequate substitute.  It was very challenging, but that is the kind of thing that parents do for their children, even those who rarely call or skype. 

So, here is a recipe for semur daging, with the original ingredients if you are cooking it in New York, where you can find almost everything, as well as some substitutions if you are someplace else like Jerusalem, which has other virtues. 
  
Semur Daging in New York and elsewhere:

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup sliced onion (one small) or shallot (one very large or two medium)
• 2 pounds boneless beef  (chuck or kalechel is ideal; flanken or shank are great, but then use 3 pounds and leave out the bones)
• 1 pound beef soup bones with some meat on them (neck rib, etc)
• 1 slice fresh ginger  
• 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg 
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, ideally fresh ground
• 1 stalk lemon grass, smashed and cut in a few large pieces  (optional)
• 1 fresh red chili pepper, sliced (optional)
• 2 quarter inch slices fresh galingal (laos/kha);(if you can't find it, use dried slices or 1 teaspoon powder, or substitute 2 more slices ginger)
• 4 tablespoons sweet soy sauce (Use kecap manis if you can find it, if not you can substitute 3 tablespoons dark soy sauce and 2 additional tablespoons brown or white sugar.)
• 2 teaspoons vinegar (I like apple cider vinegar)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a pot, and add the onion or shallot and saute on medium until soft.
2. Add the meet and bones and saute on high until it loses its red color.  It is not necessary to brown.
3. Add all the spices (ginger through galangal) and saute a minute or so.
4. Add the remaining ingredients, turn heat down to very low, so the stew just barely simmers, and cook for two  to two and a half hours until the meat is very tender.  Stir every 45 minutes or so so that all of the meat spends at least some time submerged.  You can also bring the pot to the simmer on the stove and then transfer it to a 300 degree oven to bake for 2 and a half to three hours, stirring about halfway through.  I think that the meat comes out best in the oven. 
5. Fish out the ginger, galingal and lemon grass if you can.
6. That's it.  Serve with rice  (click here for an easy recipe) to 4 or more people.

What to serve with this?  In addition to white rice, you can try my imitation fast gado gado, and Indonesian salad with peanut sauce, adapted to what is available in Israel.  Mix smooth peanut butter (try 1/2 cup) with 2 tablespoons soy sauce, the juice of one lime, and a teaspoon of harissa.  Mix well until smooth. Dribble in a little water until it is pouring consistency.  Taste it and add more soy if it needs to be saltier, lime juice if you want it more sour, and more harissa if you want it spicier.  Put some shredded cabbage on a plate.  Top with cold boiled green beans and, if you want, sliced boiled potatoes.  Shred some raw carrots on top (just use a vegetable peeler to make shreds right onto the salad) and top with sliced scallions.  You can use other vegetables if you want.  Garnish with quartered hard boiled eggs and pass the peanut sauce separately for everyone to dress their own.  The stew is also very good with any tender green, like spinach or bok choy, sauteed with shallots and/or garlic.

How to adapt this for Pesach?  Don't even think about it.  Soy sauce is a misnomer.  It is made mostly from  wheat cakes with some soy fermented further in water which is then drained off to make the sauce.  Soy sauce is sort of the Platonic form of hametz. .There is no way you can make this pesah-dik even for people who eat kitniyot.

Mexican Brisket in the Style of Syrian Jews

I am not a competitive person.  Last year, one of my birthday dinners was prepared by my friend Jay and it was the Mexican brisket recipe that I blogged on last November.  So, when they came for a birthday Shabbat dinner last Friday (his wife's birthday is the same week as mine), I had to prepare a better Mexican-style brisket.

This recipe is 100% inauthentic.  It was inspired by a broadcast in March 27, 2010 of the Splendid Table, when  Lynne Rossetto Kasper interviewed Patty Jinich about the Jewish cooking of Mexico.  Amongst other things, they discussed the happy marriage of Mexican and Jewish cooking, especially the cooking of Jews from Syria.  Mexico City has a significant Syrian Jewish community,  and I thought that it would be fun to try a brisket in this style.  So, I used tamarind, apricots and allspice, very typical of Syrian food, along with ancho and mulato chilies and other Mexican herbs and spices. The recipes in the back of my mind when I prepared this were Jennifer Abadi's Chicken with Apricots from A Fistful of Lentils, and Diane Kennedy's Pollo Enchilado from her Mexican Regional Cooking.  I don't think that cooking and serving a whole brisket is typical of either Mexican cooking or Syrian Jewish food, but it works well here and the long cooking allows the meat to absorb all the flavors. Modesty aside (blogs are not the place for modesty), it was magnificent.  Jay said that this was better than his. But then, I'm not competitive.

If anyone is actually familiar with the cooking of Mexican and/or Syrian Jews, I would love to hear your reaction. 

Mexican Brisket in the Style of Syrian Jews

Ingredients

• 3-4 pound brisket, top-of-rib roast or similar cut (fatty second cut brisket is probably best -- this is soul food, not health food)
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 6 dried chiles, a combination of ancho and mulato
• 25 almonds with the skin on
• 4 cloves
• 8 black peppercorns
• 1 stick Mexican cinnamon (see below)
• 1 large or 2 medium onions, chopped
• salt to taste
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/8 teaspoon oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon thyme
• 1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper (if unavailable, substitute a teaspoon of paprika and a pinch of cayenne)
• 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes (I use Muir Glen fire roasted)
• 3/4 cup tamarind paste (or substitute 1-2 tablespoons concentrate -- see below)
• 1-2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 cup dried apricots
• 6-8 whole medium potatoes, peeled (medium starchy rather than waxy or russet is what I used)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet or roasting pan, and brown the meat on high.  Since the shape will be irregular, it will not become uniformly brown.  Don't sweat it.
3. Meanwhile, toast the chilies lightly on a cast iron skillet.  Snip them open with kitchen scissors and remove as many of the seeds and veins as you can.  
4. Remove the meat from the skillet to a roasting pan or a plate, and saute the chilies in the fat remaining on medium heat.  They will become slightly crisp.  Be careful not to burn or they will become bitter. Remove to a blender.  
5. Add the almond, cloves, peppercorns and cinnamon to the skillet and saute gently until they swell and the spices become aromatic.  Add to the blender.
6. Add the onions to the skillet, salt lightly and saute until soft but not brown. Add the allspice, oregano, thyme and Aleppo pepper and saute a few minutes until aromatic.
7. Add the tomatoes, tamarind, brown sugar, Worcestershire and a teaspoon of salt and simmer about 3 minutes to combine.  Taste the sauce which should be balanced between sweet, sour and salty, with the sour notes dominating since the apricots and chilies will add additional sweetness.  Correct seasonings with more tamarind, salt, brown sugar or Worcestershire to taste.  Add to the blender.
8. Blend until well pureed.  It may take a few minutes and  need a little coaxing, but you should do OK if you work your way up from a slow to high speed.  I find that a good blender does a much better job than a food processor at breaking down the chilies and cinnamon stick.
9. Put a little sauce on the bottom of a large flattish roasting pan.  Put the meat on top and the potatoes around.  Top with the apricots and pour the rest of the sauce over it.  Cover the dish with foil or a cover if it comes with one.
10. Put the dish in the oven, turn the heat down to 325, and bake for 3-4 hours until the meat is very tender.  Check about an hour before done and add a bit of boiling water if the sauce looks like it is starting to scorch.
11. Slice meat against the grain and on an angle, and  return to the sauce, and keep warm until you serve.  This is nice served with just challah and the potatoes which absorb lots of flavor from the sauce.  If you don't make it on Shabbat, corn tortillas would be very welcome.  It would also go well with rice or with sliced grilled polenta.  This quantity will serve 6 people generously.

Caution:  The sauce is delicious but dangerous to all kinds of fabrics.  It is similar to a class of moles called manchamanteles which  are made with chilies and fruit and translates literally as "table cloth stainers."  Believe it. My wife and I honeymooned in Mexico (Mexico City, Oaxaca and San Miguel D'Allende) and we ruined an article of clothing every day of our trip because of the chili sauces.  Perhaps the future of indelible inks lies in the combination of chilies and lipids.

Make ahead notes:  Unless you want to spend all day in the kitchen, this dish is best made in advance. Add a bit of boiling water before you reheat it to thin the sauce a bit and prevent scorching. Leave the meat whole.  I find that when people prepare a brisket in advance and slice it before letting it sit and reheating it, it tastes like leftovers and is a waste of effort.  You can also cook it for 2 hours the first day and another two the day you plan to serve it. However, it takes a long time for the meat to come up to cooking temperature if it has spent the night in the refrigerator.    The leftovers are great with soft corn tortillas.

Cinnamon: Mexicans are very particular about their cinnamon, which they call canela and is also known as true cinnamon or Ceylon cinnamon.  What we generally call cinnamon is actually cassia.   (Who knew?) True cinnamon is milder, sweeter, and much softer.  Cassia is harder and sharper.  Almost all ground cinnamon sold in American groceries is cassia, unless it is labeled otherwise.  If you cannot find true cinnamon, I would use 1 teaspoon of ground regular cinnamon (cassia) and add it with the other ground spices to the sauteed onions.

Tamarind:  Syrian Jews would generally use a sauce of tamarind and sugar that you prepare yourself or buy in a few stores in Brooklyn or Mexico City.  You can also use prepared tamarind paste, which is even available heckshered now, or make your own which is not that hard.  Take a block of tamarind (available in Indian and Southeast Asian groceries) about the size of an egg and put in in a container with 1 cup of water, cover and zap in the microwave for 5 minutes.  Let it sit until cool, and the press the liquid and paste though a wire strainer, leaving the seeds and other debris behind.  This doesn't take long and is rather therapeutic, and should give you the right amount for this recipe.  You can always add more Worcestershire, which is tamarind based.  A concentrate like Tamcom would be a last resort for me.

Comfort food: Krupnik (Hubagrits suppe) , in the style of Pruzhane

I was really bummed by the election in Massachusetts last night. It was like a mini-1994. Tomorrow is the time for action, whatever that might be. Today called for comfort food so I tried to reconstruct my grandmother's recipe for krupnik aka hubagrits suppe, or soup made with steel cut oats. Krupnik I believe is used to denote a liquid-y grain preparation and can be used for soups, porridges and even liquor.  This krupnik is similar to a beef barley soup, but steel cut oats (NOT rolled oats, the conventional oatmeal) are used as the grain and thickener. I haven't had it for about 30 years, but for me, it was comfort food par excellence.

There was a very lengthy discussion about the use of steel-cut oats in savory dishes on Elisheva Urbas' facebook page a few weeks ago, and I posted a suggested method for this soup. I couldn't find a recipe but one Anglo-Jewish cookbook had something that provided a starting point, and my father and others in his generation (70s-80s, sorry dad) described it to me in more detail than I remembered. Cooking, smelling and eating it, I felt myself back in my grandmother's immaculate (as in "Since I turned 85 I can't clean like I used to. I only pull out the stove to clean behind it once a week.") kitchen on Barnes Ave. in the Bronx, eating hot soup at her table with its plastic tablecloth. Just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately, Amy is on a low-carb regime, Maya is a vegetarian and Harry seems to think that soup violates the inherent order of the cosmos (it is sort of his "tohu v'vohu") so I was the only who ate it. Their loss, but I think our guests on Friday evening will enjoy it.

My father's side of the family came from Pruzhane (we are of course Litvaks) in Belarus, and the other relatives remembered it in a similar manner, so here is:

Krupnik like in Pruzhane

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound small dried white lima beans
• 1 pound beef soup meat (I used kalechel, which is boneless chuck meat, which I cut into 1 inch slices)
• 1 pound beef soup bones with some meat on them
  
• 2 quarts water
• 1 bay leaf
• 1-3 tablespoons schmaltz, or if you must, oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 6 tablespoons steel cut oats (like McCann's not quick cooking kind)
• 1 carrot, finely diced
• 1 parsnip, finely diced
• 2 stalks celery, stringed and finely diced
• 5 sprigs parsley
• 1 large russet potato, like an Idaho
  
• Salt and pepper

Method

1. The night before, pick over the limas for stones, rinse them, and soak overnight. (As I think Barbara Kafka points out, beans are legumes and not phantoms. It doesn't have to be overnight, just 6 to 8 hours depending on their age. You can also use the quick-soak method. Cover the beans with water in a pot and bring to the boil. Boil vigorously for a minute, cover tightly and then leave to soak for an hour.) Drain and rinse before using.
2. Put the meat and bones in a medium pot with the water and bay leaf and bring to the boil.
3. Turn heat down and skim off the scum as it rises.
4. Meanwhile saute the onion in the schmaltz in a skillet until soft but not brown. Add garlic and saute a few minutes more, and add to the pot. (Swish around some of the broth in the skillet and add liquid to the pot to get all the flavor.)
5. Simmer slowly for one hour.
6. Add 4 tablespoons of the oats, and simmer slowly for another hour.
7. Add the lima beans, carrot, parsnip and celery and the remaining two tablespoons of oats and simmer slowly for about 45 minutes.
8. Peel the potato and cut into medium chunks, about half an inch. Taste the soup for salt and add salt and pepper to taste. (Be careful if you are using kosher meat since it is often already quite salty.) Simmer slowly 45 minutes more until creamy and delicious.
9. If you wish, remove the meat from the bones, cut the large chunks of meat into bite size pieces, return to the soup, heat through and serve.

Notes:

The meat: Since Jews were not peasants (my family lived in a shtetl, or small city), this is not peasant food. But it is the food of the poor, or at least the very frugal. Who else would make a soup out of a grain used primarily as animal feed? My grandmother made this with flanken which is the logical choice for any dish like this. But at $14 a pound minimum for kosher flanken (boneless -- with the bones it was $15 -- figure that one out!) there was no way I could derive the comfort that I needed from making the soup with it. So I used kalechel (about $9 boneless) and meaty soup bones (about $3 per pound). The ideal cut would be shank if you can find it. The results were great and I felt duly comforted. The important thing is to use a tough meat with lots of gelatin that will dissolve in the long slow cooking along with some bones. If I made the soup with flanken, I would probably leave the pieces whole, use 3 pounds, and serve it as a separate course afterward with horseradish, which is often what my grandmother often did. But not at these prices. Flanken has become so expensive in the past few years as chefs have discovered short ribs which is the same meat, just cut differently.

Making it in advance: Your mother should have taught you never to freeze cooked potatoes, especially when they are boiled. Their texture will be ruined completely. If you want to make a larger quantity of the soup, set aside some and freeze it before adding the potatoes, and then add them and cook until tender the day you serve. You can refrigerate this soup for a few days, but add a little boiling water and reheat it very slowly or it may scorch.

Clod

One of the challenges of switching to kosher meat is that fewer cuts are available. The hindquarters are forbidden because they contain the sciatic nerve (in commemoration of Jacob's injury when he wrestled with the mysterious man at Jabbok). You can actually remove this, but it is expensive and time consuming. My grandfather said that in Pruzhane, the shtetl where they came from in Belarus, his father would stay up all night performing the process. In the US, as opposed to Pruzhane, where non-Jews are happy to buy meat from kosher slaughterers (and much prime meat is), hindquarters are not certified as kosher and the observant are restricted to the forequarter, which generally contains tougher cuts.

In transitioning to using only kosher meat, I have found myself experimenting with a lot of cuts that I didn't deal with before. Hence clod. Fairway market sells a kosher cut called clod, which is also known as minute roast, but clod has a certain poetry about it. I don't know the etymology, but it must mean something in Yiddish. I don't particularly care for it when cut into steaks,which I don't find particularly tender, and they have a thick vein of gristle running down the center which isn't very appealing. However, I have found that it makes a great pot roast, and if you pressure cook it, the whole deal takes about an hour, and the vein becomes soft and gelatinous, a pleasure for some of us (like me), and easy enough to cut out for the rest. Here is my recipe:

Clod with mushrooms and wine

1. Sear a 2 pound clod roast on all sides in vegetable oil in a large skillet on high heat. (I use canola oil which contains Omega-3s to compensate for all the Omega-6s in everything else we eat, especially the grain- and soy-fed meat.)
2. Meanwhile, saute one very large onion, halved, sliced, and lightly salted, in a little vegetable oil in the pressure cooker. Add about 4 cloves sliced garlic and saute come more.
3. When the meat is seared, put it on top of the onions in the cooker. Add a 15 oz. can of crushed tomatoes (I like Muir's Glen roasted tomatoes), a half cup of red wine, some pepper, 2 bay leaves, a pinch of rosemary, and 2 cloves (these add a wonderful aroma.
4. Close and seal the pressure cooker and bring the pressure up to high over high heat. (On my Kuhn-Ricoh, that means the second red ring is showing.)
5. Turn heat to medium and cook for 45 minutes. Watch from time to time to make sure the pressure is constant.
6. Meanwhile, pour the oil out of the skillet (it will have burned if you seared the roast properly) add a little more oil, and another large onion, quartered and sliced. Salt lightly and saute until golden.
7. Add one pound washed sliced mushrooms. I like cremini. Forget about what people say about wiping them individually with a damp paper towel. Life is too short. Dump them in a large bowl of water and swish them around a bit. What dirt doesn't some off you can then remove with a paper towel.
8. Salt lightly and saute on medium high until the mushrooms give off all their liquid, and then boil it all away. The mushrooms and onions will be nice and brown at this point. Shut the heat until the roast is done.
   
9. After the 45 minutes, let the pressure come down naturally (i.e. don't run under cold water or press the button, it could toughen the meat). Remove the cover and the roast from the cooker. Boil down the juices until they are as thick as you want -- I like the texutre of a chunky tomato sauce. Stir occasionally so it doesn't scorch. Remove the bay leaves, and the cloves if you can find them.
   
10. Slice the roast about 1/4 inch thick and put in in the skillet with the onions and mushrooms. Pour the sauce on top. Simmer a few minutes and serve. Goes very nicely with egg noodles or other pasta.
11. Serves 4 .

You can probably make this stove top in a regular pot, but I would give it about 3 hours, and I don't know how tender the gristle would be.

My favorite joke, and birthday dinners

What is the difference between roast beef and pea soup?

Anybody can roast beef.

This is actually from a Prairie Home Companion joke show, and will make a big hit with boys in the 6 - 8 year old demographic.

However, I am not sure that it is true. I cook all the time, but I have never make roast beef (as opposed to a gedaempfte brust) and it took be almost 30 years to actually bring myself to roast an entire chicken -- see one of my earlier posts on this. A formidable rib roast, cooked in dry heat is something that it may take me another 20 or 30 years to try.

All this is by way of intro of course. Usually I seem to make my own birthday dinners, and since I can be an unpleasant control freak when I enter a kitchen, this seems to make everyone happy. This year, however, I was fortunate to be invited two birthday dinners, both delicious. The one on my birthday itself was cooked by a friend with the same birthday, and featured English-style roast beef, which was wonderful, along with Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes. I have never had Yorkshire pudding before, which is odd for a reformed omnivore. However, it was sublime in the truest sense of the word -- the apotheosis of beef fat. I could hear my arteries harden with each bite. (These are compliments.) I would not try to duplicate either of these, but they were accompanied by some of the best, crunchiest roast potatoes I have ever had, and I will post the recipe as soon as I get my hands on it.

The night before, we had Mexican brisket. This recipe has gone through a few stages of transmission already, and reflects what was served to us. The style is different from that of most of my postings. It comes from Emily as taught to Jay, with my edits. I think that this is the first recipe that I have posted that I have not tested myself, but that will come soon enough. I have put some suggested variations at the end as well.

Mexican Brisket4-5 pound brisket
Salt and Pepper
3 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
4 cloves sliced garlic
2 cups Mexican beer (in this case light Dos Equis)
2 cups chicken or beef broth

2 ancho chiles, stemmed seeded and torn into big pieces
2 small cinnamon sticks (preferably the soft Mexican kind)
1 Tablespoon oregano, preferably Mexican
2 bay leaves
1 cup canned tomatoes (Muir Glen diced fire roasted is nice here)

1 cup golden raisins

1/2 cup sliced or slivered almonds

1 chipotle in adobo (available canned, I like San Marcos brand)

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Salt and pepper the mean and brown in oil in a heavy pot or dutch oven.
3. Add the ingredients garlic through bay leaves bring to boil, transfer to oven and cook for an hour.
4. Add tomatoes, raisins and almonds and cook til tender..another two hours
5. Take out the meat and discard the cinnamon and bay leaves.
6. Puree sauce in batches, return to pot and add the chitpotles to taste.
7. Refrigerate meat and sauce separately overnight.
8. Degrease the sauce, slice the mean, and return to a 250 degree over to warm.
9. Garnish with cilantro and toasted almonds.
10. Serve with rice (night cooked in chicken broth), corn tortillas or boiled potatoes.

Variations

• Add more ancho chiles, up to 4, and toast them lightly in a dry skillet after removing the seeds and the veins, being careful not to burn them, before adding to the pot. They are rich rather than spicy and won't result in a dish that is too hot -- you can control the spiciness with the chipotles added at the end.
• Rather than using a Mexican beer, try it with something Belgian or Belgian style. I would love to try this with Tres Philosophes, a cherry-flavored Belgian style beer produced by Ommegang in upstate NY. I think it would be far better than one of the fruit-flavored Belgian lambics. In this case, I might also substitute dried cherries for the raisins. Although the dish went well with red wine, I would serve this beer if made this way.
• A chopped white onion would not be amiss, and would add flavor to the sauce. Take out the meat and saute the onion it with garlic and spices before returning the meat to the pot.
• This could probably also be made nicely with a chuck roast.
• Leave out the broth -- the beer provides more than enough liquid and more will ooze out of the meat and onions. Maybe add a bone or two if you want the flavor.

A Moroccan take on brisket

Sliced and ready to serve

(For an improved, albeit slightly more labor-intensive version of this dish, see here.)

We had this as the main dish at our Rosh Hashanah dinner. We were going to have the standard Ashkenazi variety at my mother's the next night, and wanted something a bit different. It is adapted from a chicken recipe that appeared in the NY Times in early 2008. The original recipe may be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/dining/201crex.html . I have made it with chicken and beef, and beef is definitely the winner -- it cooks longer and there is more time for the spices to meld and develop.  You can make it with stew but a fatty brisket is best I think.

Moroccan-style brisket

1. Make a spice mixture of 1 teaspoon kosher salt, 1.5 teaspoons fine, freshly ground black pepper, 2 teaspoons ground ginger (fresh is very un-Moroccan), 1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground cumin,  1.5 teaspoons of Aleppo or Kirmiz pepper, depending on your taste.  (Once I had some spice mix from Boite of cardamom, cumin and rose and added this as well.  Not too shabby. ) 
2. Rub all but about a teaspoon of the spice mix into about 4-5 pounds of brisket .  (See below on the cut to use.) You can leave it overnight if you want, though I generally don't.
3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Put 1 or 2 sliced onions in a roaster large enough to hold the meat and then some. Add 2 cloves sliced garlic, put the meat on top, and cover with 2 more sliced onions and 2 cloves sliced garlic. Sprinkle with the reserved spice mix. Add a bit more salt.
4. Add 2 oranges, cut into eighths, about 30 pitted dates, and 6-10 carrots, peeled and cut into thirds. Tuck them in wherever they fit.
5. Cover well (foil is ok), and put in the oven to bake for about an hour and a half.
6. While the meat is cooking take about 1.5 pounds of merguez sausage (not the precooked kind), prick with a fork, cut into two inch lengths, and brown in a skillet.
7. Set aside, pour out the fat, and deglaze with about 1 cup of orange juice.  A tablespoon of pomegranate molasses, if you like it, will add richness. Cook until reduced by around half.  
8. Top the brisket with the merguez pieces, pour in the juice, cover and back for another 1.5 to 2 hours until the meat is tender.
9. To serve, slice the meat across the grain on the bias. Place on a large deep platter and surround with dates, carrots, merguez and orange pieces. Taste the juices for salt and add a bit if necessary. If there are lots of juices and they are very thin, reduce them a bit, and pour over the meat. Garnish with a handful of toasted pine nuts.
10. Serve with couscous to around 8 people.

This can be made in advance, but my preference is not to slice the meat until after you reheat it.

The meat:  Best for this is a nice fatty cut, like 2nd cut brisket or deckel.  I have made it with first cut brisket to my regret-- it is really too dry.  Your cardiologist will not approve, but how often do you eat brisket?  You might as well enjoy it.  If you can find beef cheeks, they would also probably work well in this recipe, though I have never cooked with them.  If it does end up dry, which may happen if you use a first cut, be particularly careful in the slicing.  Use a very long, very sharp carving knife, hold the meat down firmly with a large fork, and carve of thin (I am talking 1/8 inch here) about 20 degrees off the horizontal,  You will end up with large thin slices.  Topped with the juices, you will be able to pretend that they are not dry.

As a stew:  Use a comparable quantity of chuck cut into 1-2 inch pieces.  The ingredients are the same, but the order and cooking time are different.  Fry the sausage first and remove.  Brown the beef in the fat and remove.  Saute the onions (chopped instead of sliced) in the fat until light brown, add the garlic and saute another few minutes.   Add the spices and saute another few minutes to remove the raw aroma.  Deglaze with the orange pomegranate mixture, and return the beef and sausage to the pot.  Stir in the carrots and dates, and top with the oranges.  Bake about 2 hours until tender.  Taste about half way through for salt and add more if necessary.