Last year, Norman Mael, long a stalwart and the chief cook of our synagogue, moved. Every year, he would make us a delicious brisket, the highlight of the Rosh Hashanah - Jewish New Year - feast he and his wife Lisa hosted at their house.
I tried holding a potluck without him, but it was sparsely attended. So this year, I decided to bring back the brisket.
It was more of a challenge than you'd think.
1. I've never made brisket, though I love my dad's.
2. It would have to be kosher. But I've never cooked kosher meat. I usually bail out by making something vegetarian. And my kitchen is definitely not kosher - I've made crab.
3. There are no kosher briskets to be found in Bloomsburg. Or in the grocery stores in Williamsport. Or Wilkes-Barre. No, you can't special order them, not from Weis, not from Giant, not from Wegmans. I checked.
But Norman came to my rescue. He found me three kosher briskets in Boston, and sent them home with his daughter Mary.
Plus he gave me his recipe. He even sent along the onion soup he uses!
Next, I looked into koshering my kitchen. That was a no go. I have only one sink - you need two. You need separate dishes, silverware, cutting boards and blender blades for meat and dairy - I suspect this rule was a plot thought up by potters and blacksmiths. To makes something kosher that was once non-kosher - like all of my silverware except one small knife I use to cook vegetarian food for the synagogue - you have to let it rest for 24 hours, then boil it, without touching anything, including other pieces of sanctifying silverware.
Unless it's a knife. You can kosher a knife by stabbing it into the earth in 10 different places. Or a flowerpot of dirt - really! Unless it's serrated. Then it's back to boiling.
Too much for me!
So I moved the project to the synagogue kitchen, where we had everything needed - separate plates, silverware, etc., except for a good kosher meat knife.
Until Friday.
I was still debating whether I wanted to risk dulling my one non-serrated good knife by stabbing it into my lawn, or whether I'd settle for sawing away at the brisket with the synagogues meat-side table knives when I arrived at the synagogue to start the cooking.
There, on the counter, was a beautiful, sharp chef's knife! I don't know where it came from. But I took it as a gift from G-d and got started!
Four and a half hours later, I had three extremely tender and tasty briskets. I couldn't decide if I wanted to use my dad's recipe or Norman's, so I made two of dad's and one of Norman's. (I thought I would make one of each, but had to buy more than I needed of the ingredients for one of Dad's. I had planned to use just two pans, but the meat didn't fit and I needed a third.)
Both came out delectable and tender. I'm still not sure which is my favorite. So I'll post both.
The trick is low and slow - as John Hopkins of Forks Farm advised me. I cooked these at 325 for 4.5 hours.
Here's Norman's. I'll post Dad's separately.
Ingedients:
1 large brisket, about 7 pounds
1 box of onion soup. Not a packet - a box. Norman uses a kind that comes two packets to the box
1 bottle of ketchup, 14-ounces
1 liter of ginger ale
Pepper to taste.
1. Pepper the brisket. Brown if you like (I did), but that's optional.
2. Put the brisket in one of those disposable aluminum pans(assuming you didn't brown them in the pan.)
3. Add all the other ingredients.
4. Seal the pan tightly with aluminum foil, then drop it in another aluminum pan.
5. Pop it in the oven and leave it alone for 4-5 hours.
6. Let the meat cool before you remove it from the sauce and slice it. Slice it across the grain. Take any fat off the sauce after it has cooled. Return the meat to the sauce and stick it in the fridge until the day you use it.
7. Reheat gently in the sauce.
