Books |
The Brisket Book: A Love Story with Recipes
Stephanie Pierson
By
Published: Oct 20, 2011
Category:
Food and Wine
I don’t know why anyone thought the world needed an entire book about brisket, dripping with anecdotes, theories, recipes and memories.
Brisket is, after all, a very simple matter.
Just use my recipe.
Four pounds of brisket from the supermarket — the less you spend, the better. On a burner turned up fairly high, brown the beef in a Le Creuset 5 1/2 Quart Round French Oven. Add a bottle of red wine. Two large chopped onions. Three or four diced carrots, celery stalks, tomatoes. A tablespoon or two of tomato paste. One or two crushed garlic cloves. Salt and pepper. Set in a 350-degree oven for 3-4 hours, turning the brisket over once or twice and adding water, as necessary.
Ah. Just like Mama used to make.
Here’s the problem: Your mother used another recipe.
And as someone wise has said of brisket, "With most foods, there’s a right way and a wrong way. With brisket, there’s only my way."
There were so many “my ways” — including her way — that Stephanie Pierson wrote “The Brisket Book: A Love Story with Recipes.” It turns out to be a really excellent book, or should I say, a very tasty book. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
Home cooking is the big idea here. (“Rarely has a truffle ever gone into the making of one,” Pierson writes.) And slow cooking. (“Time and the brisket are friends.") And love. (“I say: a brisket in every pot, in every Crock-Pot, on every Weber, in every barbeque joint, on every Passover platter, in every deli, at every butcher, in every food truck, on every TV food show, food site, food blog.”)
Brisket’s the ultimate comfort food. Which means many people want to comment. Butchers. Restaurateurs. Experts (“As you cook, two important things happen. Collagen breaks down and forms gelatin, while muscle fibers tighten up and squeeze out moisture into your cooking liquid, flavoring it.”)
The heart of the book, of course, is the recipes. Some are eye-popping. Lipton dry onion soup mix? Oh, dear. And, from the assistant to the rabbis at New York’s Temple Emanu-el, a recipe calling for two cans of jellied cranberry sauce. And this woman calls herself a Jew!
Brisket with ginger, orange peel and tomato. With tangy peaches. With Korean chile. A brisket burger. Barbequed. And many more worth trying.
The book includes a brief essay on pages 189-190 by Jesse Kornbluth. It is overtly erotic.
Here’s a recipe that isn’t mine, but doesn’t suck.
Texas Oven Roasted Beef Brisket
serves 6
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 bay leaf, crushed
1 4-pound beef brisket trimmed
1 1/2 cups beef stock
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a small bowl, make a dry rub by combining the chili powder, salt, garlic, onion, pepper, sugar, dry mustard and bay leaf. Season the brisket all over with the rub. Place the brisket in a roasting pan and roast, uncovered in the oven for an hour.
Add the beef stock and enough water to yield about 1/2 inch of liquid in the pan and then tightly cover with aluminum foil. Lower the heat to 300 degrees and continue to cook until it’s fork-tender — about 3 hours.
Transfer to a cutting board and trim off any excess fat and then thinly slice the meat against the grain. Serve with pan juices.
