Apple cider brisket
Perfection for a holiday meal
I can’t count how many times I have failed at making brisket. It would turn out dry, or when I got soft meat, it shredded when I carved it. People think of brisket when they think of a Jewish holiday meal, and I really wanted a win in this department. My family didn’t seem to mind eating my failed attempts. But a juicy brisket that I could carve and present beautifully on a platter? That eluded me.
It confused me because I didn’t have any issues making or carving any other kind of roast, so I played it safe and avoided new attempts. For one thing, kosher brisket is fairly expensive, while it used to be an affordable roast.
I typically tweak a recipe many times until I get it right before publishing. Experimenting put a big dent in my pocketbook and I felt pretty defeated. I picked the brains of everyone — even strangers on social media to figure out what I was doing wrong, and the information lovingly shared with me helped me get the result I wanted.
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Good cooks don’t come out of a vacuum. Learning to cook takes love, time and patience, but it also means listening to those with experience. A great cook is rarely satisfied, and will keep researching and trying new things to improve a recipe, so I encourage you to keep trying, even if you fail as many times as I have, because eventually it turns out right.
I was cooking my brisket at too high of a temperature. I also learned that if you want succulent beef, choose a double brisket from the butcher. After a recent last attempt, I can tell you that I won’t bother again with a single brisket.
It’s equally important to cook the brisket, refrigerate it overnight, slice it cold, then put it back into its juices to warm. Your brisket may taste amazing if you eat it right away, but it’s much more likely to shred if not refrigerated before carving. I also think that the flavors meld together if allowed to rest overnight.
This is a “sweet and sour” recipe; I used apple cider vinegar to add some extra depth to the flavor. It’s not overly sweet nor sour — but the apple cider vinegar gives the flavor a gentle tang. We almost have an empty nest, so I also started making smaller pieces of meat in the 2-3 pound range, which feeds four people well.
I serve brisket with mashed potatoes, which complement the carrots and gravy. For many years, I whipped the boiled potatoes with a hand mixer, using margarine and pareve creamer or unsweetened oat milk, but recently I’ve omitted the creamer and replaced the margarine with an equal amount of mayonnaise, and I love how the potatoes come out so light and fluffy. Either way, drain the boiled potatoes, put them back into the cooking pot, add the margarine or mayonnaise to the pot immediately while the potatoes are steaming, and whip with a hand mixer until light and fluffy. If you’re using pareve milk, add that after you’ve mixed in the margarine, then salt and pepper to taste. I don’t use creamer when I use mayonnaise. Either way, the hand mixer is clutch to getting fluffy potatoes.
Ingredients:
1 2-3 pound double brisket
1 teaspoon kosher salt to season the meat
¼ cup avocado oil
2 large onions, peeled and sliced
6 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons tomato paste
5-6 whole cloves of garlic, peeled
6 large carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
2 cups beef broth
1 teaspoon coarse black pepper
½ cup gently packed light brown sugar
1 envelope Lipton kosher onion soup mix, or 2.5 tablespoons of an equivalent onion consommé
Set the oven t to 280 F, with the wire rack in the middle position or in the lower third if you’re using a large Dutch oven.
I use an enameled cast-iron pot with a tight fitting lid, and do all of the cooking for this recipe in one pot.
Open the brisket and lay it out on a small sheet pan, sprinkling both sides with a total of 1 teaspoon of kosher salt. I usually add a little salt before searing, but since I use onion soup mix as a flavoring, no more is needed for this dish.
Peel and cut all of the vegetables before searing the meat so that everything is ready to go. Peel and halve the onions, and slice them lengthwise in about ¼-inch slices. (I make a few wider slices for texture.)
Turn your stovetop burner to medium heat and add 2 tablespoons of oil to the pot to warm before searing the brisket for about 3-4 minutes per side.
Once seared, remove the brisket from the pot, then add 2 more tablespoons of oil to the pot. Add all of the onions at once, stirring them into the oil.
When you sear meat it usually leaves a brown layer on the bottom of the pot — this gets mixed into the onions, so you will see a brownish color on them right away.
Sauté for 20 minutes, until the onions soften.
Remove the onions from the pan and add them to the brisket, also adding 4 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to deglaze the pan.
Use a wooden spoon to scrape off any browned bits, then add the tomato paste to the cider vinegar, mixing it well before turning off the heat of the burner.
Put about half of the sautéed onions in the pot and place the brisket over top of the onions.
Put the cut carrots around the brisket and add 2 cups of beef broth, pouring it on the side of the pan, not over the meat.
Pour the remaining 2 tablespoons of cider vinegar over the meat and sprinkle 1 teaspoon of coarsely ground black pepper over the roast.
Empty the packet of onion soup mix over the meat only, followed by the light brown sugar. Cover the roast with the remaining onions, cover and cook for 1 hour at 280 F.
Reduce the heat to 200 F and cook covered for an additional hour; 2 hours, covered, seems to be the magic number for a brisket of this size.
The brisket should be fork-tender at this point. If it’s not fork-tender, put it back into the oven, covered, for another half-hour. If the brisket still isn’t fork-tender, remove it; it may just be the cut of meat, and cooking it longer won’t make it softer.
Let the brisket cool entirely before refrigerating overnight (or for 12 hours), then slice it cold and put it back into the juices in the pot.
If you’re not serving this until the evening, put it back into the refrigerator to rest until you’re ready to warm it, with the lid on, for less than a half-hour in a 300 F oven.
Keep the pot covered until you’re ready to serve.
Enjoy and bless your hands! PJC
Jessica Grann is a home chef living in Pittsburgh.
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