Showing posts with label slow roast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label slow roast. Show all posts

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Mom's Slow Roasted Brisket

Meat falls into two categories for me. Tender cuts that should be cooked quickly to char a little on the outside and still stay rare and juicy on the inside, and tougher cuts that need a long time on the stovetop or in the oven to become tender. Brisket most definitely falls into category two. With its thick layer of fat on top, cooked long and low, there is no more succulent cut of beef. 

Almost the whole while that my husband and I were dating and for our first year of marriage, he worked offshore. That meant five weeks away working and then five weeks at home. Whenever he got back, we had a family get-together since everyone wanted to see him again. My mother almost invariably made her slow roasted brisket. In fact, it became kind of a joke, because if Simon was home again, we must be having brisket. Fortunately, he loved it. Her recipe was simple. Cover the brisket with onion powder, salt and pepper and roast, covered first with foil and then the lid of your roaster, until tender. Of course, the time varied with the size of the brisket but you were looking at a minimum of three or four hours.

When this week’s Sunday Supper theme of Man Food was posted, I knew what I wanted to make but brisket is difficult to find overseas. Butchers just seem to divide the cow up differently. I was delighted when I got a lead on the elusive cut from fellow food bloggers in Dubai. My husband and I were out running errands and I mentioned the possibility in passing to him since we were in the neighborhood of the butcher. I wish you could see how his eyes lit up. The good news was that they had one whole brisket. The bad news was that you had to buy the whole thing. I’m talking about seven kilos or almost 15 1/2 pounds of meat. That’s a lot of beef! Keep in mind that our children no longer live at home. But dear husband looked so full of hope that I found myself taking out a second mortgage and buying that brisket. (Just kidding about the mortgage. It was crazy expensive, but he’s worth it!)

I don’t have onion powder so I used fresh onions and to try to replicate the pungent sharpness of the powder, I added lots of garlic as well. It ended up tasting very much like my mom’s brisket and we were delighted. As for the copious leftovers, I’ve got a few ideas you might like to try and I’ll add those after the recipe. And if you are looking for Man Food ideas for Fathers' Day, be sure to scroll down to the bottom for a spectacular list of recipes.

Ingredients
1 whole brisket (about 15.4 lbs or 7kgs)
20 cloves or about 100g garlic
2 medium or about 300g onions
2 tablespoons flakey sea salt
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
Olive oil

Method
Take your brisket out of the refrigerator and let it warm up till it’s almost room temperature. Take any plastic wrap off and dry it thoroughly with paper towels.

Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.

Put all your seasoning ingredients into a food processor and process until they become a rough paste.



Put the brisket in your large roaster (preferably one with a tight fitting lid), fat side down. Spread half the paste all over the meat and give it a good drizzle of olive.



Turn the brisket over so it is now fat side up and spread the rest of the paste on the meat. Drizzle generously with olive oil.



Roast uncovered for 30 minutes in your preheated oven. Cover well with foil and then put the lid on nice and tight. Reduce the heat to 275°F or 135°C. Cook for three and a half or four hours and then check for doneness. Baste with the drippings every couple of hours.

See all that juice that is created? Some of it is fat that can be skimmed off. The rest is a lovely gravy.


Brisket is done when you can practically cut it with a dinner knife that isn’t even sharp or shred it with a fork. I ended up cooking mine for almost seven hours. No joke. It was a very large piece, or maybe New Zealand brisket isn’t as tender as Texas brisket. All I know is when I took it out again at seven hours, it was falling apart. So good! Best part is, it makes its own gravy.

According to my husband, brisket is best served with potatoes and gravy and a side of buttered peas the first night. So that’s what we had.


In the following days, it also turned up 1. In omelets with added chopped tomatoes and onions and cheese.


2. Sliced in brisket sandwiches on baguette with whole grain mustard, mayo, sliced tomato and greens.



3. Reheated in a skillet with added taco spices and served as brisket fajitas with caramelized onions, salsa, cheddar cheese and avocados in flour tortillas.


4. Reheated in a skillet with added ground cumin and coriander and served with tabouli and hummus in pita bread for lunch with a little Middle Eastern flair.



5.  Reheated in a skillet with barbecue sauce and served on a bun with extra slices of onion for a delicious barbecue sandwich. I forgot to take a photo of the original sandwiches but because it's Father's Day weekend, you know we slow roasted another brisket here in Texas yesterday.






And, finally, a confession, 6. I froze a big chunk in its gravy because the man left town on business and I just couldn’t look at it anymore. Someday it will be cottage pie, which is another of his favorite meals.

If you are looking for Man Food inspiration for Fathers’ Day, we’ve got you covered. Our Sunday Supper host this week is the talented and fabulous Susan from The Girl in the Little Red Kitchen who just happens to be running a Kickstarter campaign right now and will bake you cookies if you contribute.

Check out all the wonderful recipes this week! Never mind the men, I want to eat them all!

Manly Starters
Manly Mains:
Manly Desserts:




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Saturday, April 19, 2014

Slow-Roasted Lamb with 40 Cloves of Garlic #NationalGarlicDay

Lamb shoulder is the perfect cut for a good long roasting in the oven and it goes especially well with garlic in abundance. The tender meat falls off the bones and the resulting gravy is rich and aromatic. If you’ve never tried lamb shoulder, it’s time, friends, it’s time. This recipe is best started early in the morning, or even the day before you want to serve it.




Growing up, my grandmother had what we call a fouillon about lamb that she passed on to my mother. I have no idea how that’s really spelled but it means a quirk against or an aversion in Cajun French. My mom extended this aversion to anything goat, as well, even my beloved goat milk cheese. She said she could taste the animal and it didn’t taste good. 

Needless to say, we never had lamb at home when I was a child so I didn’t really have an opportunity to try it until I married into a family of Brits who eat lamb all the time. It was too late to change my grandmother's mind, but I am pleased to say that I have converted my mother now and she enjoys rack of lamb and goat cheese. (Still working on the other cuts!) The moral of this story is that your mother is almost always right, unless she’s wrong.

Today we are celebrating National Garlic Day with a great garlicky giveaway and lots of center stage garlic recipes! Aside from its medicinal properties, garlic just tastes good. It adds warmth and spiciness and there are very few recipes that cannot be improved upon by adding garlic. Even ice cream! No kidding. Check out girlichef’s creamy treat made with black garlic in the links below. And make sure to enter the draw for the giveaway. One winner takes all!

Ingredients
Time! (This roasts for 6 and a half hours, not counting preparation and marinating time.)
1 shoulder of lamb on the bone, around 6 lbs or 2.7kg
1 cup or 240ml dry red wine

For seasoning the roast:
Leaves from 2-3 sprigs fresh rosemary (Plus extra sprigs for garnish, if desired)
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
2 teaspoons fennel seeds
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
10-12 black or mixed peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons flakey sea salt (like Maldon)
12 cloves garlic (about 1 3/4 oz or 50g)
1/8 cup or 30ml pomegranate molasses
1/4 cup or 60ml olive oil
Plus six extra cloves of garlic sliced lengthwise in quarters or sixths.

AND 22 more cloves – more or less – for adding to the pan in the last hour of roasting for a overall total of 40 cloves or about 6 oz or 165g of garlic.

Method
Use a mortar and pestle to crush the first eight ingredients in the spice mix list until you create a fine paste. Add in the pomegranate molasses and olive oil and stir until well combined.


Put the extra six sliced cloves into the mix.





Score the fatty top of your lamb shoulder with a sharp knife. Using a small paring knife, make holes all over the shoulder, turning the knife as you plunge it in to widen the holes enough for you to fit a forefinger in them.

Poke a piece of garlic into each hole, along with some of the spice mixture, until you’ve used up all the extra garlic and have spice filled holes on all the sides of the lamb.




Rub the rest of the spice mixture all over the shoulder. Wrap it securely with cling film, refrigerate and leave to marinate as long as you can. Overnight would be great but even an hour or two would be good.

When you are ready to start roasting the lamb shoulder, remove it from the refrigerator and preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.

Put lamb in a baking tray or pan and roast in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.


Add in your cup of wine and another cup of water around the roast. Cover with a tightly fitting lid or some aluminum foil. Turn the oven down to 250°F or 120°C.

After five hours, take the lamb out and toss in the remaining 22 whole garlic cloves. Baste it with the pan juices, cover the pan again and return it to the oven for one last hour of slow roasting.



When you are ready to serve, spoon off the oil in the pan. You can then pull the meat off the bones with a couple of forks and pour the pan juices over it. I let mine cool for quite a while and then wiggled the bones out to leave the roast looking relatively whole. Then I served it with a couple of forks and the pan juices made into gravy on the side. It was divine!


























How about these wonderful recipes celebrating GARLIC!



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