Bubby Brisket. Ish.

I figure since its Passover I should write a blog about a typical holiday meal. Brisket! Making a good brisket is relatively easy, provided you cook the meat long enough. If you don't, it will taste like shoe leather.
My Bubby (grandmother for you goyim) used to make the BEST brisket. Ever. It was one of her staples. She only made a few different dishes, but the ones she made were always outstanding. Her repetoire consisted of:

- Chicken Soup (duh - what Jewish grandmother DOESN'T make chicken soup?) This also contained boiled chicken.
- Borscht (also a soup)
- Cukleten (which nowadays I call Tzizot, aka hamburgers/meatballs served like little hamburgers)
- Brisket
- Coffee
- French Fries (mostly reserved for the holidays)
- Fresh bread with butter (store bought bread from the Open Window Bakery)
- French Toast (positively DRIPPING with butter)
- soft boiled eggs
- Matza Brei (at passover time)

...And that's about it: but those dishes were made EXCEPTIONALLY well.

Her Brisket was truly amazing. Sadly, I never learned how to make it exactly as she did, but I did learn to make a tasty alternative.

Get a big ass oven proof pot with a lid. Line the bottom with whatever root veggies you care to add. I a variation of potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, celery and parsnip. Whatever I happen to have. This time, I had a few potatoes, carrots and celery. Toss in a boullion cube of whatever type of boullion you have. I used an organic onion soup boullion.



Place your meat on top. You can use a double or a single brisket. First cut or second cut. I prefer first cut single best, because it has less fat. On top of the meat, add a couple handfuls of brown sugar.



In a cuisinart, whiz up a couple of carrots and an onion and one more boullion cube.



Place this mixture on top of the meat and sugar. Then cover that with ketchup and mustard. I know it sounds gross, but it actually is very tasty when it comes out. I also added a good squirt of smoked jalepeno sauce. I need a little zip in my gravy, rather than just all that sweetness.



Then fill the whole pot up with orange juice. I use PC Organic OJ. The liquid should just come to the edge of the meat. In essence, you are braising the meat. If you don't have OJ, you can use any sort of liquid you have. Wine, pop, cranberry juice, etc. I like OJ, but I know a lot of people use coke. Personally, I would never use pop. Hate that crap. Wine would be an interesting choice to try one day though. It would change the flavor something fierce. I have a friend who uses water, and her brisket always comes out delicious.

Close the pot up, pop it in a 350 oven and cook it for about 3 hours. I like to put a piece of tin foil in to really seal it, as I find my pot lid doesn't fit perfectly.



After 3 hours, take it out, remove the meat, and let it sit for a bit, until it is cool enough for you to handle. Slice it into thin slices on the bias, and put all the meat back in the gravy. If the meat isn't fall apart tender, cook it for another hour. It all depends on the size of the brisket. The bigger it is, the longer it takes to cook. Put it this way, its pretty hard to overcook this type of meat. And it tastes even better the second day.
I wish I could show you a picture of the finished product, but the little bastards devoured it before I could pull out my iPhone. 5 pounds of meat was instantly inhaled. I have made it twice in recent past, and BOTH FREAKING TIMES they got to it before I could snap a pic.

To all of you who celebrate Passover, Chag Sameach. To those of you who celebrate Easter, Happy Easter. To those of you who celebrate Ishtar, enjoy your sex. To those of you who celebrate something else, or nothing at all, enjoy the long weekend.