Date I made this recipe – April 15, 2017 – Passover
The Joys of Jewish
Cooking by Stephen and Ethel Longstreet
Published by Weathervane Books New York
© 1974
Recipe: Karobki Pot Roast (Beef Brisket) – p. 84
This year, the Jewish holiday of Passover started on Monday,
April 10th and since I couldn't make a dish on that day, I thought
all was lost but no, people, no; Passover ended on Tuesday, April 18th
so I snuck this one in just in time.
I'm probably being single-minded here, but when I hear
"Passover" or "Hanukah," I think of one word: brisket.
Sure, there are other foods I can make, like [Jewish] chicken noodle
soup, or matzo ball soup, but been there, done that. I have not though, made a brisket in eons and
just felt like this year was "the" year.
All right then, having decided to make a brisket, all I had
to do was go out and find one that would feed two people instead of twenty and
all I can say folks, is "Oy."
Oy, oy, oy, what a task this was!
I tried several grocery stores finding mostly briskets costing upwards
of $40.00 and that was way too expensive for us plus, I'd have to freeze the
leftovers and I didn't want to.
In the end, Whole
Foods [Whole Paycheck] had beef brisket that I could buy by the pound and
so I was all excited because I could get just what I needed, no more, no less,
and planned to round up my afternoon of shopping with a stop there, but first, Target.
Target stores have
been in the papers a lot lately because their growth strategies just seem a tad
off. Long gone are the days when you can
stop at Target and do one-stop
shopping. Gone too, are some of the
"basics" like household cleaners or even just plain old
toothpaste. And not that I'm necessarily
keeping track, but I think I've walked out empty-handed probably 9 times out of
10 and it's because they don't stock what I am looking for. As a for instance, last year, I stopped at Target hoping to find just a basic ace
bandage. Did they have one? No. I
found it at Walgreens. Did they have a household bleach I like to
use? No.
I found that elsewhere as well.
The list goes on and on. (Local's, one place where I inexplicably find a
lot of things I need is at Frattalone's
Ace Hardware on Grand Ave. Not groceries, mind you, but other household
stuff? Oh my, yes!)
But on brisket day folks, my luck changed. Mind you, I went into the store looking for
another basic item that they didn't have, and then checked out a few other
things to no avail, and was about to leave the store empty-handed to go to Whole Foods when I thought "Oh what
the hell, check out the meat department to see if they carry brisket."
Folks, it was a regular Passover/Easter miracle! Not only did they carry brisket, but they
were all small cuts of meat, weighing between 1.5 and 2.5 pounds and so not
only did I find it, I had options! And
it was priced to move! So as I said to
some friends, today I left totting one damned fine piece of brisket! I still can't believe it.
So okay then, I had my brisket, I had the other ingredients,
and now all I had to do was cook it as directed.
Insert major
"record-scratch" moment here.
"As directed" said to simmer a four-pound brisket
(full recipe) for 1 hour, then slice it and return it to the heat for another ½
hour until meat is tender. This is
whacked. Since I was making this for
Passover let me just posit that God can perform many miracles, but he cannot
make a four-pound brisket cook fully in an hour and a half. And even though I made half the recipe, the
cooking time was still insufficient for my two-pound roast. Total time elapsed for my mini-roast was
about 3 hours and it still could have cooked for about a half an hour longer
but I decided enough was enough.
In a way, I blame myself and my own self-imposed rule of
following the directions to the letter because I knew better. Brisket needs to be slow-cooked. It can slow
cook in a crock pot, or it can slow cook in an oven (I used the oven to finish
it off), but at minimum, you need to plan on about 3-4 hours or more depending
on the brisket's size. One hour is
insufficient. An additional half hour is
insufficient. In fact, that's my word of
the day: insufficient.
So here's what I did instead: I checked the meat at the half hour mark
because in theory, two pounds of brisket should need half the time (one hour
for the full recipe) and it wasn't anywhere near done. So then I checked it at the hour mark and it
wasn't done, and then I cooked it for another half hour on the stovetop and at
1 ½ hours, it was still petty tough.
Okay then....hmmmmm, what to do next, what to do next?
Google. That's what I did next. I Googled brisket
recipes and every single one of them without fail said 3-4 hours minimum
without regard to the size.
And so I removed the brisket to a roasting pan, added all
the vegetables and sauce, covered the pan with foil and baked the sucker for
another hour. Total elapsed time was now
2 ½ hours and I was getting closer but still wasn't done.
I decided I was going to give it another ½ hour and you
know, by then it was almost perfect, but it could have benefited from another ½
hour to be sure. Maybe more. But by this point, we were approaching 8:00
p.m. and I just didn't have the patience to go much longer so I pulled it out
of the oven and turned the oven off.
Take that!
And so we tried it and we liked it, Hey Mikey, and that was
good. The meat was fairly tender (it
should be) and the accoutrements (tomatoes, onion, garlic, red wine, etc.) made
for a great "flavor profile," ala Food
Network's Chopped. And there was
much rejoicing!
Please note that this recipe calls for a ½ cup dry red wine
but if you don't want to go that route, substitute beef, chicken, or veggie
broth (Why do I suddenly feel like I'm selecting a option from a wedding
reception menu?) and you should be okay. But if beef is not your thing, then I've got
nothin'!
Wait, that's not true as this book has several other recipes
that might appeal...or not!
In the fish department, we have "Herring Pie"
(nope), "Gefilte Fish Balls" also a "no" as is – for me –
"Pickled Herring." I know
plenty of people though, who like herring so if you want it, you go for it!
If you must have chicken soup, there are a couple of recipes
for that. I love chicken soup but I was
set on brisket. If you want dessert (and
boy, was that tempting), then there are plenty that should satisfy, including
several strudel recipes and also a cheesecake recipe. Again, all good but I needed, wanted, had to
have brisket, no other substitutes would do.
One of the challenges of this book (besides the brisket's
cooking time) was the way it is laid out.
The authors take us through Jewish cooking in several countries or
regions and within that region, they give us recipes for
"Appetizers;" "Meat;" "Fowl;" "Fish;"
"Soup;" "Vegetables;" "Salads;" "Doughs,"
and "Desserts," and so if you are looking for a particular recipe,
you may need to do a bit of hunting. The
countries/regions they included in this book are:
- Middle
East and
- The
If you put the countries and categories together, here is
what you'll see in the Table of Contents:
§
Meat
§
Fowl
§
Fish
§
Soup
§
Vegetables
§
Doughs
§
Salads
§
Dessert
*Categories vary depending on the country, for example, Russia 's list
did not include Appetizers but other countries did.
I must say though, that reading through each section was
kind of fun even if it took me longer than I imagined to find the right
recipe. You'll definitely see regional
differences in the ingredients used but that too, adds to the fun.
All in all, this was a tasty recipe and one that I might
make again sometime when I have half a day to devote to it!
Karobki Pot Roast
(Brisket) – 6 servings - "The karobki was the Czar's official tax on
kosher meat. The title of this dish is
meant to be iron – for it survived after the Revolution of 1917."
3 large onions, sliced
1 clove garlic, mashed or finely diced
1 pound stewed tomatoes (Ann's
Note: I used diced tomatoes. Why?
Because I found myself standing in the Vegetable aisle confused as all
get out i.e. did Stewed Tomatoes always contain onions and green pepper? The cans I looked at that day did. Rather than screw up the recipe by using
ingredients that weren't called for, I stuck with plain old tomatoes, final
answer!)
4 carrots, scraped, quartered
Pinch of oregano
Pinch of sugar
Salt, ground pepper to taste
4 pounds beef brisket
½ pound fresh mushrooms
½ cup dry red wine
In a 5-quart pot with a lid put the sliced onions, garlic,
tomatoes, carrots, a pinch of oregano, a dash of sugar, and salt and
pepper. Put the meat on top, cover pot
tightly, bring to a boil. Lower heat,
simmer for 1 hour. Ann's Note:
I cannot stress this enough: You
will need more than one hour if you are making a full recipe (4 pounds of
brisket) and definitely more than a half an hour if you are making a half
recipe (2 pounds of brisket). So either
resign yourself to cook this for at least 2 hours or on the stove, or follow
along with me as I "fix" it for you.
After an hour, slice the mushrooms and mix with wine. Remove meat and slice against the grain. Add mushrooms and wine to gravy. Put sliced meat in pot, cover tightly, return
to boil, lower heat, simmer for ½ hour until meat is tender. Serve with potato latkes. Ann's
Note: Again I say unto you, you need
more time. If your brisket miraculously
cooks during this time period, hooray for you, but unless it is the size of a
boot heel, it probably won't. As I
mentioned above, I ended up simmering my two-pound brisket for about an hour
and a half before moving the whole shebang to the oven to bake for another hour
and a half at 300F.
Should you want to
skip the simmering portion of the program, slow cook the brisket in a 250-300F
oven for several hours. Cover your
roasting pan with heavy duty aluminum foil if your pan does not have a
cover. I think you should probably
follow the general guidelines which is to say bake all but the mushrooms and
wine for a couple of hours before adding the finishing touches.
The total time for
this recipe, as written was 1 and ½ hours for a four-pound brisket.
Good luck!
By the way, after dealing with this overly-long brisket
process, I realized why I hadn't made a brisket in such a long time and it's
because of the time requirements, oy.
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