Dressing Up Brisket Several Cultures Make The Most Of This Tough But Lovable Cut Of Meat

For a relatively unglamorous cut of meat, beef brisket sure seems to get around.

On Sunday, for the 57th straight year, roasted brisket will be the centerpiece of the annual Kosher Dinner at Temple Beth Shalom in Spokane.

Eight days later, corned beef brisket will grace many a St. Patrick’s Day table throughout our area.

And when spring rounds the corner, brisket will resume its role in the region’s grills and smokers as the raw material of traditional Texasstyle barbecue.

“Down there (in Texas), beef brisket is as common as pot roast up here,” says Doug Hanson, meat merchandiser for Rosauers supermarkets. “Now, people here are catching on, learning how to cook it.”

Brisket is a muscular cut of meat from the lower shoulder of the steer, sort of a breast of beef. Because the meat contains lots of connective tissue, it requires long, slow cooking to break down that tissue and become tender.

A full brisket is relatively cheap, at about $1.50 per pound. It’s also relatively high in fat, at 11 grams in a 3-ounce portion, trimmed and braised about midway between regular ground beef and the leanest cut available, eye of round.

However, the moist-cooking methods used for brisket add no extra fat, points out Patti Brumbach, executive director of the Washington State Beef Commission.

And brisket is increasingly available in a “flat” cut, with the fatty point trimmed off, although the price doubles to about $3 per pound.

“It’s a good piece of meat, with excellent flavor,” says Rick Darby, meat sales manager for area Albertson’s stores. “And it goes a long way. There’s no bone or anything in it.”

The trick is not overcooking it, says Rosauers’ Hanson, or it gets “tougher than shoe leather.”

Its affordability is apparently what endeared brisket to frugal cooks in Texas and later Kansas City. One version has it that some Germans who owned meat markets in the Texas Hill Country started smoking briskets to make them more tender and salable.

“They started cooking it low and slow, and barbecue arrived,” says Bob Lyon of the Pacific Northwest Barbecue Association in Bellevue, Wash.

Brisket’s popularity in the Jewish community is a little more complicated.

Under a complex set of scripturally derived dietary laws, called “kashrut,” kosher Jews are limited to eating animals that both have cloven hooves and chew their own cud - which includes beef, but not pork.

And only certain parts of allowed animals are kosher. Hindquarters, along the sciatic nerve, are generally prohibited because of the biblical story in which Jacob injured his thigh while wrestling with an angel, explains Rabbi Sol Landau, interim rabbi at Temple Beth Shalom.

Steve Berde, the temple’s first vice president, suspects economics played a role, too.

“It’s really no different from a lot of ethnic food,” says Berde, who’s in charge of the brisket preparations for this year’s dinner. “The Jewish people, like many other people who were poor, had very little meat to begin with. They used the cuts that were available to them.”

Brisket became a mainstay in the diet of European Jews, often appearing at holiday festivities such as Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year. “No matter what part of Europe you were from, you had your recipe for brisket,” says Ethel Grossman, one of the temple’s senior cooks.

The recipe Berde is using for this year’s temple dinner is adapted from one he found in a book about Jewish cooking from around the United States. It includes Coca-Cola, which is a kosher product, and chili sauce.

“The Coke creates a caramel color that’s real pretty,” Berde says. And with the chili sauce, he says, “It’s kind of a spicy flavor, a more lively sauce. I’ve made a lot of different briskets over the years, and this seems to be the best I’ve tasted.”

The kosher brisket for the dinner - 1,300 pounds in all, or about 200 individual briskets - is specially ordered from Chicago. To qualify as kosher, meat must be of top quality, slaughtered humanely in a special ceremony, and have all blood removed before cooking, by salting and rinsing.

“There’s something about kosher meat. It’s as tender as it can be,” Berde says. “When you buy brisket at the grocery store, sometimes it’s great and sometimes it’s not.”

The lengthy cooking that brisket requires is a particular challenge when you’re preparing to feed 3,000 people. Berde and his all-male crew started roasting briskets early last Sunday morning to get them all cooked, sliced, wrapped and stored in time for this Sunday’s dinner.

“It’s not quick, but it’s guaranteed to be great,” Berde says. “The secret is not to rush it. It has to be cooked slowly until it’s fork-tender.”

Two years ago, Cook’s Illustrated magazine, the how-to, bimonthly culinary bible, experimented with various roasting times and temperatures to determine what would produce the juiciest brisket.

It settled on an initial pan browning on the stove followed by a short time in a very hot oven (500 degrees) to complete the browning and add flavor, with a final, long braising at 250 degrees - enough to break down the tough connective tissue, without cooking the meat so much that it dries out.

Following are recipes for the brisket Berde chose for this year’s temple dinner, a from-scratch corned beef brisket provided by the Los Angeles Times Service, and the more complicated Cook’s Illustrated method.

Steve Berde’s Brisket

Adapted from “Jewish Cooking in America,” by Joan Nathan (Alfred A. Knopf).

1 beef brisket, about 5 pounds

1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 cup onions, chopped

1 cup carrots, chopped

1 (12-ounce) can Coca-Cola

1 (1-ounce) package dry onion soup mix

1 (8-ounce) bottle chili sauce (or ketchup, for a less spicy dish)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat oil in roasting pan over medium-high heat. Add brisket and brown on both sides.

Roast brisket in preheated oven, uncovered, for 20-30 minutes. Add remaining ingredients to pan, cover, and continue roasting until tender, about 3 hours.

Yield: About 8 servings.

Durgin Park Corned Beef and Cabbage

While corned beef is a St. Patrick’s Day fixture in America, the salted meat was traditionally eaten in Ireland on Easter to break the Lenten fast. This home-cured recipe from Boston’s Durgin Park restaurant produces a gray corned beef unlike the red, sodium nitrite-cured corned beef briskets in supermarkets.

1 pound kosher salt

1 gallon water

1 fresh beef brisket (7 to 8 pounds)

6 whole bay leaves

8 to 10 black peppercorns

1 large head cabbage, cored and quartered

1 bunch carrots, peeled and thickly sliced

1 large turnip, peeled and cut into 2-inch cubes

8 large potatoes, peeled and halved

Mix together salt and water in a large nonreactive pot. Check to see if a potato will float in the brine; if not, add more salt. Add brisket and allow to cure at least 48 hours. (Beef must be completely covered, so double the brine recipe if necessary.)

Drain meat and add fresh water to cover along with bay leaves and peppercorns. Bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for 3 to 3-1/2 hours, or until fork tender. Be careful to cook slowly; simmering, not boiling, will produce a tender brisket.

During last 45 minutes of cooking time, add cabbage, carrots, turnip and, if the pot is large enough, the potatoes. (Carrots, turnip and potatoes also can be boiled separately.) Allow meat to cool 15 to 20 minutes before carving.

Yield: 14 to 16 servings.

Braised Beef Brisket

From the March/April 1995 issue of Cook’s Illustrated magazine. Using an instant-read meat thermometer helps make sure the brisket doesn’t overcook.

2 teaspoons whole fennel seeds

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds

1/2 teaspoon whole allspice

1 beef brisket, about 5 pounds

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 cup dry red wine

4-6 cups chicken stock or low-sodium chicken broth

Salt

2 medium onions, quartered and separated into sections

1 full head garlic, halved crosswise

3 celery stalks, chopped coarsely

2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped coarsely

Parsley sprigs for garnish

Heat oven to 500 degrees.

Slightly moisten fennel seeds with water and chop with a knife. Crush other spices by rolling the bottom of a heavy saute pan back and forth over them. Press crushed spices into brisket.

Using two burners if necessary, heat oil in a large, heavy roasting pan at least 2 inches deep. Add brisket; cook over medium-high heat, turning once with tongs, until browned on both sides, about 10 minutes. Remove and set aside.

Add wine to pan and bring to a boil, scraping bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to loosen browned bits. Continue cooking wine until reduced by half. Add 2 cups chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Remove pan from heat. Season brisket lightly with salt, and return it to roasting pan. Scatter vegetables around brisket.

Put roasting pan in oven and cook, stirring vegetables occasionally to avoid burning, about 20 minutes, until thickest part of brisket reaches an internal temperature of 130 degrees. Remove pan from oven and reduce temperature to 250 degrees; do not return brisket to oven until temperature has dropped to 250.

Add enough chicken stock to the pan so that the liquid comes about halfway up the side of the meat, baste the brisket and return it to the oven. Braise brisket, basting and turning every 1/2 hour or so, for 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 hours, until a meat thermometer inserted into the brisket registers around 175 degrees.

Remove brisket from braising liquid and wrap in foil. Strain liquid into a large mixing bowl. Reserve vegetables, squeezing the cooked garlic cloves from the heads. Transfer braising liquid to a tall, narrow container and let stand until fat rises; skim and discard.

In food processor or blender, puree vegetables, including garlic, with 1/2 cup braising liquid. Add pureed vegetables and remaining braising liquid to a saute pan and simmer until reduced to the consistency of a thin sauce.

Meanwhile, cut brisket across the grain into thin slices (about 1/8 inch thick). Arrange slices of meat on warm plates and generously ladle sauce over meat. Garnish with parsley and serve immediately.

Yield: 8 servings.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Staff illustration by Charles Waltmire

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Kosher Dinner Temple Beth Shalom’s 57th Annual Kosher Dinner will be served Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the temple, 1322 E. 30th. Along with roasted brisket, the menu includes an assortment of relishes; challah (braided egg bread); potato knishes (mashed potatoes baked in a pocket of dough); carrot tzimmes (flavored with prunes and oranges); coleslaw; Mediterranean spiced apples; and apricot kuchen (cake). Take-home baked goods will also be sold at a deli bar. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children 11 and under. Advance tickets are recommended, as last year’s dinner sold out; for information, call 448-7442.