Week 8: Slow-Cooked - Red Wine Brisket with Apricot and Onions

mmmmmmmmm brisket.

Homer Simpson made start drooling when he thinks about donuts, but me, I drool thinking about brisket. When I saw that this week's theme was slow cooking, I didn't even consider any other possibilities. The recipe that I did is a rewrite I did a couple of years ago on Wolfgang Puck's Wone-Braised Brisket of Beef with Caramelized Pearl Onions and Dried Apricots (my recipe is below). I wanted to try to make the same thing in my slow cooker instead of having to pay attention to the thing all afternoon. That night I had my in-laws over to enjoy dinner with us. He enjoyed dinner so well that he went out and bought the same slow cooker!

Brown the meat before it goes in the slow-cooker

mise en plas

Throw it all together and walk away. Just walk away!

Resist the urge to lift the lid. After 8+ hours it turns out like this.

As the meat rests, saute up the onions and apricots that will accompany it. Also the red wine sauce.

 I served the brisket with a root vegetable mash (made with Yukon Gold potatoes, parsnip, and sweet potato), oven-roasted carrots (that turned out like carrot french fries), and sauteed leeks with peas (finished with butter and sherry). All our guests brought bourbon. My wife broke out the Girl Scout cookies afterwards. A very fulfilling President's Day dinner party.

Oh yeah. I forgot. I made this Monday and didn't post it until now. A bit of a procrastinator, aren't I?

el fin

Recipe:

5 pounds beef brisket

2 tablespoons kosher salt

1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

1 bottle red wine

all-purpose flour

2 plus 2plus 2 tablespoons vegatable oil

10 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

6 large shallots, peeled and thinly sliced

2 medium carrots, peeled, cut into 1-inch chunks

2 celery stalks, cut into 1-inch chunks

1 medium leek, white part only, cut into 1-inch chunks

1 cup of dried apricots

6 sprigs fresh flat leaf parsley

2 sprigs fresh tyme

2 bay leaves

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 ¼ cup homemade beef stock or good quality canned beef broth

1 cup pearl onion

minced parsley for garnish

1. Season the brisket evenly on both sides with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, bring the wine to a boil and continue boiling until it reduces to half its original volume, 15 to 20 minutes

2. Evenly sprinkle the brisket all over with flour, shaking off the excess. Heat a wide skillet or dutch oven (cast iron preferably) over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of the oil. When it is almost smoking, turn the heat to medium high, carefully add the brisket, and sear until well browned, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer the brisket to the slow-cooker.

3. Pour off the fat from the skillet and add another 2 tablespoons of the oil. Add the garlic, shallots,carrots, celery and leek and saute until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add half the apricots and the parsley, thyme, bay leaves, and tomato paste and cook for 1 more minute. Add about ¼ cup of reduced wine if it is needed to deglaze the pan.

4. Add vegetable mixture to the slow cooker. Add the reduced wine. Cover the slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours, or 5 to 6 hours on high.

5. Blanch and peel the onions, leaving them whole. (Bring saucepan of water to a boil. Add the pearl onions and blanch for 30 seconds. Drain and immediately immerse them in an ice bath. Cut the ends off and peel the onions.) Cut the remaining apricots into ¼ inch strips

6. In a small saute pan, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat and saute the pearl onions until lightly golden, 5-7 minutes. Add the apricot strips and pour in ¼ cup of stock or broth, stirring and scraping with a wooden spoon to deglaze the pan deposits. Reduce the heat and simmer gently until tender, about 5 minutes. Cover and keep warm.

               (NOTE: My wife has continually held that the onions and apricots are not needed. I like them.)

7. When the meat is done, carefully transfer (you’ll probably need two people) to a “heated” platter and cover with aluminum foil and let rest for 15-25 minutes.

8. Strain the remaining liquid from the slow cooker through a fine mesh strainer into a saucepan, add ½-1 cup of beef stock or broth and bring to a boil. Continue at a boil until the liquid thickens and reduces (Wolfgang says when it is a quart, but he also was counting on an additional 2 qt of broth, I went until it was "gravy-like"). Season to taste with salt and pepper.

(NOTE: All the cooking shows and Cooks Illustrated says to throw away the vegetables after they have been used for this recipe. I feel like I am wasting food when I do this, but this time I did.)

9. Serve by slicing the meat across the grain in ¼ inch slices. Arrange the slices on the platter and spoon about half the sauce over it and garnish with the onions and apricots. Spinkle minced parley and pass remaining sauce.

Week 7: Love-Inspired (Whereby I Screw Up Everything)

So this was a simple plan. It is our traditional V-Day dinner. My wife loves scallops. She has taught me that there is great food that never even had a face, scallops are one of those. I love steak, especially a nice ribeye. Therefore, this is love-inspired.

And look at these scallops! They were amazing. They were big. They were dense. They were the best scallops I think I have ever purchased.

The steak was thick and marbled. I sprung for Prime as well.

I salted the scallops and steak and stuck it in the refrigerator for about an hour. The salt helps draw out some moisture. The refrigerator helps to dry it out. Both of which are helpful when pan-frying to get a good sear.

We reheated some Pão de Queijo (leftover from Sunday) as appetizers as we waited on the potatoes to cook. Unfortunately, that was the best part of the meal. Reheated Pão.

I attempted to make mustard-roasted potatoes from smittenkitchen, which my wife had made with success before. FAIL. Burned to a crisp due to my inattention and a pesky, unreliable oven thermometer. (Yes. I have a separate thermometer. No. I didn't pay any attention to it once I put the potatoes in.)

We ended up throwing about 2/3 of them away.

 I cooked the steak for three minutes on each side in the cast iron, pulled it off and set it to rest for ten minutes.

I cooked the scallops, so that everything would be perfectly timed. Potatoes would come out, scallops would be hot, steak would be rested, greens would be done.

While the picture may look good, I didn't rinse the scallops off and must have been heavy handed with the salt. They were too salty, to the point where they were difficult to eat alone. I cut into the steak and it was rare. Not what my wife would call yummy. So that had to go back on the stove. The potatoes, as you saw, burned. Pretty much a complete failure on V-Day. grrrr.

Week 6: Brazilian - Pão de Queijo

I was so excited when I saw that this week was Brazilian. My wife and I took an awesome vacation to Brazil with my in-laws two years ago. We spent 17 days touring the country. We had nine different flights, so when I say touring the country, I mean really touring. My mother-in-law was in the Peace Corps in Brazil so we got to meet and stay with friends of hers from those days. Also we made friends of our own out long time family friends of my mother-in-laws family.

From the beaches of Copacabana, to the falls of Iguasu, to Tirradentes in Minas Gerais, the people of Brazil are wonderful, friendly, and welcoming. And the food is amazing! We have been meaning to make Pão de Queijo since we got back and this was a perfect opportunity.

Pão de Queijo are basically cheese puffs, made with manioc flour and cheese from the Minas Gerais region. They are everywhere in Brazil. And everyone has a different family recipe. They come in different sizes with differing amounts of cheese. We even had some that were the size of a baby's head with cheese that streched out when we pulled them apart.

It is really difficult to find Brazilian food products in Cincinnati. We went to Jungle Jims, the local foodies paradise, to try and get supplies, and even they fell short. If we can't get it there, then it just ain't available. They didn't have the Mineran cheese so we made do with Queso Fresco and a little Asiago.

Bringing it together.

Adding in the cheese

Let the dough rest a bit

Roll them out. The dough was really sticky, so I oiled my hands up to do this.

Turned out perfect.  Just like we remembered!

 One of out friends is from Florianopolis, and his mother is in the country visiting. Last weekend, she made feijoada, and they had us over for a party. There was so much food, that they sent some home with us. Made for a perfect coincidence! We made some couve for a side. I realized after it was gone that we had forgotten the farofa though! A glass of ice cold beer (couldn't find any Brahma or Antartica, so Pacifica had to do), and I do mean ice cold, made for a great Sunday night meal.

If any Brazilian mother saw how little food was on my plate, I certainly wouldn't have been allowed to get up from the table!

RECIPE:

My father-in-law has been fiddling with this recipe since we got back, trying to get it just right. He did a great job! We had to make a few changes due to unavailable ingredients. We went with 250 gr of sweet manioc flour and 250 gr of sweet manioc starch. This change meant that we had to add in a bit of water while kneading the dough. I also added in about a tsp of baking powder in the flour. I used 50 gr of asiago and 250 gr of queso fresco. We dd our kneading in our stand mixer with a dough hook.

PAO DE QUEIJO (AKA BRAZILIAN CHEESE PUFFS)

Servings: 35-40 puffs depending on size

Ingredients

120 gr sweet manioc flour (Farinha de Mandioca – flour or polvilho is more coarse than starch)
130 gr sweet manioc starch (Bob’s Red Mill tapioca flour aka tapioca starch)

250 gr sour manioc starch (Yoki’s sour starch Almidon Agrio Amedo Azedo)

Total of 500gr starch mixed

125 gr Queso Fresco  crumbled                                         125 gr cows milk feta crumbled

125 gr Piave Vecchio/Parmesan coarsely shredded   or    125 gr gouda coarsely shredded

Total of 250 gr cheese, keep each cheese separate

250 ml 1% milk, for scalding  (you could use whole milk)

1 ½ tbs butter

1/2 tsp salt (more or less, depending, on the saltiness of the cheese mixture you are going to use)

3 small eggs slighty beaten

A little additional milk or warm water

Preparation

1. Put tapioca starch/flour into a large bowl and mix.

2. Combine butter, salt and milk in a sauce pan. Heat and stir constantly to boiling point  (watch closely - when the mixture starts to rise, remove immediately from heat).

3. Pour mixture all over the tapioca flour, and start stirring the mixture using a wooden spoon and as soon as the mixture is cool enough (but still very warm) rub the starch together with the milk with fingertips until mixture resembles course meal.

4. Add beaten eggs in 1/3, not all at once. Knead until it is very sticky and elastic, about 15 minutes, add a little milk or warm water if necessary (You will need a spoon or scraper to get it off your hands).

5. Add first crumbled cheese to mixture

6. Mix until smooth

7. Last add coarsely shredded cheese to mixture (If the dough is sticky, it raises more – the dryer the dough the less it rises. Sueli added a small amount of warm water if she felt the dough was not moist enough and also tasted the raw dough to see if it had enough salt.

8. Let the dough rest while you preheat the oven to 400^oF (it is very important that the oven is at high temperature when you bake the pães-de-queijo; if they start to get too brown on the bottom before getting golden brown on top, reduce the temperature a little bit).

9. Prepare two large baking pans. Oil your hands with vegetable oil and form golf-sized balls with the dough (1 in.). Place them 1-2 in. apart in the pan, as they grow considerably when baked. (You can, at this point, freeze the balls and then store them in zip lock bags to bake them straight from the freezer at your convenience - they will take a little longer to get ready, though.)

10. Bake until golden brown, usually about 28-30 minutes. Serve hot.

Cooked puffs can be frozen, and then warmed up on a low setting in an oven.

Week 5: Beer/Wine/Liquor - Slow-Cooked Bourbon Shredded Beef

This week's theme is cooking with alcohol. Generally, alcohol comes into the kitchen in the form of deglazing a pan or creating a sauce. I wanted to make something where the alcohol contributed more to the flavor. I also wanted to use whiskey. After scouring the internet for something that wasn't a desert and used whiskey in a way that contributed to the food's flavor, I decided on Slow-Cooked Bourbon Shredded Beef.

Makers, meet beef. Beef, meet Makers.

One for the beef, and one for me. Mmmm.

 I used a much smaller roast, about half the size the recipe called for. I did adjust the amount of braising liquid down a little, but not in half. I also substituted some quality beer for the beef broth.

Browning the roast.

Used the crock pot for this one. I don't pull it out as often as I should.

 I thought that the recipe was lacking in some ingredients that I would include in a barbeque sauce, so I added about 1.5 tsp ground mustard, 2 tsp hot paprika, and 2 tbsp honey. As the recipe calls for, you place the onions on the bottom to prop up the roast. This helps create some "bark" on the outside.

After several hours, shredding the meat is easy.

 After removing the beef from the crock pot, I removed the onions from the cooking liquid and reserved them. I then defatted the cooking liquid. I took that liquid and put in in a small sauce pan with some additional honey and about 1/8 c of prepared barbeque sauce. I brought this to a boil and then simmered until the liquid had thickened, about 15-20 minutes. I then mixed this sauce with the shredded beef, adding salt as needed.

Toasted bun, topped with bourbon beef, Swiss cheese, and bourbon onions.

My ever-ready taste tester thought that the unsauced beef was good, but that the flavor of the bourbon wasn't extremely powerful unless you had an outside piece. Once the sauce was on, though, it was great! I will add this to the recipe box, especially for a game day dish.

The Super Bowl kickoff is tonight at 6:29 PM EST.  I will be rooting loud for the NY Giants. I hope that you all enjoy the game! Go Big Blue!

Recipe is available from the source.