Delicious Recipes for a Sweet New Year

Happy New Year and l'shana tova to all those who celebrate. If still deciding what to make, why not try my "Tamarind Brisket" and my "Almost Confit Chicken." May it be a sweet year for everyone. Tamarind Brisket with Spring Shallots and Tiny Potatoes Ask your butcher for the “first cut” and make sure to leave some of the fat on the brisket for best results.

Note: You may cook 2 or 3 potatoes per person (there is a lot of food so you may only want to do 2.)

5 pound boneless beef brisket ¼ cup olive oil 2 pounds peeled onions 1/4 cup tamarind concentrate* 2 cups orange juice 2 cups tomato puree 2 cups beef broth 4 large cloves garlic scant 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 12 large shallots, (about 12 ounces), peeled and halved lengthwise 1 or 1-1/2 pounds tiny round thin-skinned potatoes (16 or 24), scrubbed not peeled

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

In a very large enamel casserole with cover, put 2 tablespoon oil. Season meat with salt and pepper and brown over high heat, about 4 minutes per side.  Remove meat.

Cut onions in half through stem end.  Put cut side down on board and slice very thin.  Add 2 tbsp. oil to pot and add onions.   Cook over medium-high heat for 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until softened and golden brown. Return beef to pot and put on top of onions.

Put tamarind in a bowl.  Whisk in orange juice, tomato puree, and beef broth.  Push garlic through a garlic press and whisk into mixture.  Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Pour mixture over brisket.

Bake 1 hour, covered. Turn brisket over, cover and  bake 1 hour longer. Add potatoes and shallots. Bake 1 hour longer.

Transfer brisket to cutting board. Let cool 15 minutes. Thinly cut across the grain and reassemble slices to original form.  Transfer back to pot.  Spoon liquid over meat and cover pot.  Cook 30 minutes longer until very tender. Add salt to taste.  Serves 8

*Available in Indian food stores and Middle Eastern markets.  It comes in small plastic jars and is called concentrate of tamarind.

“Almost Confit” Chicken with Melted Garlic

8 large bone-in chicken thighs, 8 ounces each 14 large garlic cloves, peeled 1-1/2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, plus sprigs for garnish 6 fresh bay leaves 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper freshly ground nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  Put the chicken in a large bowl.  Press 2 garlic cloves through a press and rub into the chicken.  Add the thyme leaves, bay leaves, allspice, white pepper, and 1-1/2 teaspoons salt.  Grate some nutmeg over the chicken and toss.  Place the chicken in a roasting pan, skin side down.  (I use an enamel paella pan.)  Cover the pan tightly with foil and bake 45 minutes.  Turn the chicken skin side up and scatter the remaining garlic cloves around.  Re-cover and bake 1 hour longer.  Turn on the broiler. Uncover the chicken and broil several inches from the heat for 5 to 10 minutes, until the skin is crispy.  Discard the bay leaves and garnish with thyme sprigs.  Serves 4

And check out the food maven's website for a good honey cake recipe.

The New Brisketeers

When I grew up in Queens, New York, a housewife's fail-safe recipe consisted of baking a brisket with Heinz's chili sauce and Lipton's onion soup mix. This usually was done in a throwaway aluminum pan covered with a thick layer of foil. I was reminded of this last week when I was judging a brisket cooking contest in Manhattan, sponsored by Jimmy Carbone, food impresario of Food Karma Projects who is also the owner of the affable Jimmy's No. 43. Proceeds of the boisterous evening went to support a local charity.

In a frenzy to be named the Brisket King of NYC, an honorific similar to Iron Chef in some circles, a dozen die-hard guys and gals (mostly guys), competed for top honors with new styles that could rival the house of Chanel. It's funny to think of brisket being coiffed and demure and in some cases that evening it was: delicate portions of brisket Shabu-Shabu, wine-soaked brisket on a raft of melted fontina, and brisket croquettes served with mustard aioli. But mostly the stuff belonged in a Benetton catalogue, uniting the flavors of the world, from Red mole brisket with avocado cream and pickled onions, to a red wine, grape jelly and rosemary braised brisket on polenta, to oak-smoked brisket with a green papaya salad, to burnt ends with foie gras, truffle juice and tangy slaw, from worcestershire-braised brisket with horseradish, to beer-braised brisket with roasted grape chimichurri. Clearly, not your mother's brisket.

Beef brisket comes from the lower chest of an animal and its muscular function is to support most of the weight of cattle, since they have no collarbones. Brisket gets lots of exercise and therefore is one tough piece of meat. That's why it needs long, slow cooking to the point where it is well beyond well-done.

And why do we love it so? After the collagen, developed by all that muscular stress, is dissolved during cooking, you get an extremely juicy, extremely flavorful piece of beef.

Slow cooking is achieved in a variety of ways, depending on where you come from. Out west, smoking from indirect heat over hardwood coals -- in other words, barbecuing -- works wonders. If you're Irish, you immediately think of corned beef. If you're Jewish and your parents came from Eastern Europe, well then, you'd use brisket for pot roast. They're hot on brisket in Hong Kong, too, with restaurants that specialize in nothing else. In Thailand, you'd cook it gently in yellow curry paste and coconut milk.

Of course, it's not that simple. An entire brisket consists of two overlapping muscles whose fibers run more-or-less 90 degrees from each other. Supermarkets often sell these cuts separately: what's called "first cut" or "flat cut" is thinner and leaner (and therefore a bit drier); the "second cut" or "point end" or "deckle" is thicker, juicier, and much preferred in our household -- because what's the point of brisket if it isn't lip-sticking succulent? Both cuts have a fair amount of fat on or in them and you want to leave that fat on during cooking to keep the moisture in.

Because people are fat-o-phobic, many food markets only sell the first cut. But If you're cooking an entire brisket, which I like to do, then you need a quick carving lesson since the fibers of each cut aren't aligned. Much is made of this minor complexity but all you need do is carve the thin cut against its grain, then turn the meat (or flip it over) and carve the thicker cut below against its grain.

On this particular evening, what we ate was mostly the juicy voluptuous stuff: Mr. Bobo, the national Jack Daniels Master "brisketeer," even had a mixture of briskets, including Wagyu, in his delicious sliders. Those who didn't win any distinction that night were the cooks whose offerings were dry or thick or poorly cut. Top honors that night went to first-place John Zervoulakas of John Brown's Smokehouse (burnt ends with foie & truffle juice); #2 place to Ducks Eatery (Bubby's oak-smoked brisket with papaya salad), and 3rd place to Robbie Richter (for his suave Shabu-Shabu.)

And there's a new brisketeer in America: Stephanie Pierson. She is the author of The Brisket Book: A Love Story with Recipes (recently published by Andrews McMeel). It is a delightful read.

While I can't supply you with any of the winning recipes, I can give you one of my own that I created for Bon Appetit (below) or check out my "Tamarind Brisket" on my blog.

My Sweet-and-Sour Brisket with Shallots & New Potatoes

1-1/2 cups orange juice 5 large soft Medjool dates, pitted 4 large garlic cloves, peeled 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 5 tablespoons olive oil 2 pounds onions, thinly sliced 16 large shallots, peeled 2-1/2 cups beef broth 5-pound brisket (first or second cut, trimmed, leaving 1/4-inch layer of fat) 1-1/2 cups tomato puree 16 very small potatoes, about 1 to 1-1/2 inches, scrubbed

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Process orange juice, dates, garlic and cloves in a blender until smooth. Heat 3 tablespoons oil in large wide ovenproof pot over medium-high heat. Add onions and whole shallots. Cook until onions are deep golden and shallots begin to brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer shallots to small bowl; reserve. Add broth to onions and bring to a boil, scraping up browned bits. Pour onion mixture into large bowl. Add 2 tablespoons oil to the same pot. Season brisket with salt and pepper. Add to pot and brown well on all sides. Turn brisket, fat side up. Return onion mixture to pot. Add tomato puree and orange juice mixture. Bring to a boil, stirring to blend sauce. Cover pot and bake 2 hours. Add shallots and potatoes. Cover and bake 1 hour. Uncover and bake until brisket is tender, occasionally spooning sauce over, about 2 hours longer. Let rest 30 minutes. (This can be made 2 days ahead. Chill uncovered until cold, then cover and refrigerate.) Scrape sauce off brisket. Thinly slice brisket across the grain and return brisket to pot. Add the potatoes and shallots and heat until hot. Serves 8 or more.

Tamarind Brisket

So it's the day before Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year) and I'm cooking up a storm and don't have much time to write. That said, I wanted to share a favorite new way of making my holiday brisket. Up until now the base of my brisket was onions, onions, onions (a bay leaf and dry vermouth, too.) But for the last few years I have been making it intriguingly sweet-and-sour with the addition of tamarind paste, orange juice, tomato puree, ground cloves, onions and lots of shallots. Tomorrow evening we will be nine for dinner (whereas my close friend Helen Kimmel has 25 guests each night!), including the food maven Arthur Schwartz and historian Bob Harned, Bob and Becky Spitz (Bob is currently writing a new biography of Julia Child and Becky is writing a book, too), Dale Bellisfield, clinical herbalist and health care practitioner, who is also an urban bee keeper! It is her honey that we will be having to drizzle over apples (symbol for a sweet new year.) Dale's beautiful daughter, Samantha (a fabulous men's wear designer) will also be joining my husband, my beautiful daughter Shayna, and me around the table. #1 son is in California but I wish him a happy new year, with lots of love. And l'shana tova to all of you who celebrate the holiday. Here's the recipe:

Tamarind Brisket with Spring Shallots and Tiny Potatoes Ask your butcher for the “first cut” and make sure to leave some of the fat on the brisket for best results.

Note: You may cook 2 or 3 potatoes per person (there is a lot of food so you may only want to do 2.)

5 pound boneless beef brisket ¼ cup olive oil 2 pounds peeled onions 1/4 cup tamarind concentrate* 2 cups orange juice 2 cups tomato puree 2 cups beef broth 4 large cloves garlic scant 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 12 large shallots, (about 12 ounces), peeled and halved lengthwise 1 or 1-1/2 pounds tiny round thin-skinned potatoes (16 or 24), scrubbed not peeled

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

In a very large enamel casserole with cover, put 2 tablespoon oil. Season meat with salt and pepper and brown over high heat, about 4 minutes per side.  Remove meat.

Cut onions in half through stem end.  Put cut side down on board and slice very thin.  Add 2 tbsp. oil to pot and add onions.   Cook over medium-high heat for 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until softened and golden brown. Return beef to pot and put on top of onions.

Put tamarind in a bowl.  Whisk in orange juice, tomato puree, and beef broth.  Push garlic through a garlic press and whisk into mixture.  Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Pour mixture over brisket.

Bake 1 hour, covered. Turn brisket over, cover and  bake 1 hour longer. Add potatoes and shallots. Bake 1 hour longer.

Transfer brisket to cutting board. Let cool 15 minutes. Thinly cut across the grain and reassemble slices to original form.  Transfer back to pot.  Spoon liquid over meat and cover pot.  Cook 30 minutes longer until very tender. Add salt to taste.  Serves 8

*Available in Indian food stores and Middle Eastern markets.  It comes in small plastic jars and is called concentrate of tamarind.

Passover at Gracie Mansion

I had never fully prepared a Passover Seder until I was 24 years old and my first one was a doozy.  As the first chef to Mayor Ed Koch in 1978 and living at Gracie Mansion, I was asked to make the Seder for Hizzoner and his family.  I called everyone I knew, including my mother who made very delicious but extremely hard matzoh balls which my family loved but I doubted the Mayor’s family would.  What to do?  I asked the Mayor for his recipe!  He suggested putting seltzer in the mixture, telling me that would make them light and fluffy.  I recently consulted my 25-year old diary for the rest of the menu, and here it is: Friday, April 21, 1978  Passover Seder at Gracie Mansion 15 guests – 5:00 p.m.

Crudites with Curry Dip Kosher Rumaki Chopped Liver with Plum Tomatoes Matzoh Ball Soup (with seltzer!)

My Mother’s Pot Roast with Dry Vermouth & Bay Leaf Slow-Roasted New Potatoes Sweet Potato, Prune & Glazed Carrot Tzimmes Haricots Verts with Lemon Matzoh, Leek and Herb Kugel

Sponge Cake with Strawberries A selection of homemade Macaroons Passover Candy Coffee Service

This year, however, I won't be cooking.  We are guests at two different Seders -- the first night with the Cohens in West Orange (I will be bringing a flourless chocolate cake in honor of my daughter's 15th birthday the day before) and the second night at the Shinders in Manhattan, with lots of teenagers and lots of ruach (spirit!)  I will be bringing my Cauliflower-Leek Kugel.  I know that the food maven, Arthur Schwartz, will also be making it for his Seder.

But today I bring you a recipe I created for Bon Appetit that many readers have told me has become a new tradition in their homes. I originally made it with tamarind paste but was told that it wasn't kosher for passover.  Interesting.  There is much discussion about what is and isn't appropriate for Pesach!  Enjoy!

My Sweet-and-Sour Brisket with Shallots & Dates This can be prepared two days ahead; its luscious flavors improve with age.

1-1/2 cups orange juice 6 large soft pitted Medjool dates 4 large peeled garlic cloves 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 5 tablespoons olive oil 2 pounds onions, thinly sliced 16 large whole shallots, peeled 2-1/2 cups chicken or beef broth 5-pound flat cut (also known as first-cut) brisket, trimmed of all but 1/4-inch fat 1-1/2 cups tomato puree 16 very small red skinned potatoes, scrubbed

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Put first four ingredients in food processor or blender and process until smooth. Heat 3 tablespoons oil in a large wide ovenproof pot over medium-high heat.  Add onions and whole shallots and cook until onions and shallots are deep golden brown, about 20 minutes.  Transfer shallots to a small bowl; set aside.  Add broth to onions and bring to a boil, scraping up browned bits.  Pour into a large bowl.  Add remaining oil to the same pot.  Season brisket with salt and pepper.  Add to pot and brown well, about 5 minutes per side.  Turn brisket fat side up.  Return onion mixture to pot.  Add orange juice mixture and tomato puree.  Bring to a boil, stirring to blend sauce.  Cover pot; bake 2 hours. Add shallots and potatoes.  Cover, bake 1 hour.  Uncover; bake until brisket is tender, occasionally spooning sauce over meat, about 1 hour longer.  Let rest 30 minutes.  Scrape sauce off brisket.  Transfer brisket to a board and thinly slice across the grain.  Return to the pot with the sauce and heat gently.   Serves 8