Season for a brisket cook-off

BRISKET is my favorite part of the Passover meal, and yet, until very recently, I had never made one. This year, when it looked like I would be in New York for Passover, my brother suggested we hold a Seder at his apartment on the Upper West Side.

Being the older sibling and more experienced cook, I knew I’d be assigned the brisket. I had no old family recipe to fall back on as my Jewish grandmother didn’t cook and my WASP mother was a pot roast kind of gal, so I consulted my cookbooks. I didn’t expect to find much -- brisket is a stringy, uninviting cut of meat that doesn’t lend itself to invention.

Much to my surprise, I found several interesting options. Daniel Boulud’s recipe featuring turnips and apple cider was particularly appealing. Then I asked myself -- do I really want to make a chef’s brisket for Passover? Aren’t rituals and traditions the essence of Passover? I prodded friends for their versions and perused the shelves at the bookstore, coming away with Joan Nathan’s “Jewish Holiday Cookbook.”

With multiple brisket recipes to choose from, Nathan’s book armed me for Passover as well as any other Jewish holiday that might come my way.

Still I was torn. Her brisket with chile sauce and onion soup mix satisfied the part of me that wanted a traditional dish, but the idea of Boulud’s sophisticated Normandy-style brisket spoke to my sense of adventure.

Ultimately, I wanted the one that tasted best. The solution, of course, was to cook both as part of a pre-Passover dinner and see which I liked better. The battle of the briskets was on.

But two briskets is a lot of meat, so I decided to include some other tasters.

Kenny, who I knew was a brisket aficionado from our many Passovers together, RSVP’d with pleasure, dubbing us “the Brisketeers.” Leesa announced, “I make great latkes and great matzo ball soup. Take your pick.”

I opted for the soup and rounded out my menu for eight with an appetizer of warm dates stuffed with slivers of Parmesan (my nonkosher nod to Passover’s Middle Eastern roots), a side of broccolini sauteed with red pepper and garlic, and a flourless chocolate cake for dessert.

Most of the recipes I read call for “first cut” brisket. A whole brisket weighs about 12 pounds, but the point end, or “point cut,” is mainly fat. Most grocery stores trim it off, leaving a “first cut” that weighs anywhere from 4 to 6 pounds. I bought two “first cut” briskets, each weighing between 4 and 5 pounds.

The recipes also stress selecting a roasting pan that fits the brisket snugly. The reasons, I quickly learned, are that brisket shrinks dramatically as it cooks, leaving space to add vegetables during the final cooking stages, and an oversized pan requires excess liquid to adequately cover the meat. I found using a braiser or Dutch oven rather than a roasting pan produces a better result, because they allow for less evaporation.

Where the recipes differ, however, is in their stance on searing. Old-fashioned recipes don’t call for searing, whereas Boulud’s recipe as well as recipes from cookbooks by chefs Suzanne Goin and Mark Peel recommend searing as a way to seal in flavor.

After trying both, my advice is that if you do sear, be careful not to let a crust form because the key to good brisket is its tenderness.

The tasting begins

LEESA’S matzo ball soup was sublime, whetting appetites for the briskets, which were accompanied by bowls of pickles, horseradish, ketchup and spicy sweet peppers. We agreed that Boulud’s brisket was delicious. A day of marinating in white wine and brown sugar and the last-minute addition of cider and cider vinegar gave the meat an interesting and distinctive flavor.

But it failed to evoke the warmth and hominess of Passover. Ultimately, the Brisketeers preferred the old-fashioned version. We simply couldn’t escape the relationship between our memory and our palates. All those years of eating beef bathed for hours in a thick tomato sauce had trained our taste buds.

My experiment revealed brisket’s special charms for the cook: You can make it ahead of time; you can’t overcook it; and you get great leftovers (the makings of a brisket sandwich or a pasta ragu). I decided brisket should no longer be relegated to a once-a-year event, but placed high on my list of Sunday suppers.

Both versions, of course.

food@latimes.com

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Braised beef with turnips and onions

Total time: About 1 hour, 40 minutes, plus 4 hours roasting time, plus 24 hours marinating time

Servings: 8 to 10

Note: Adapted from “The Cafe Boulud Cookbook” by Daniel Boulud

1 (4- to 5-pound) brisket

2 cups white wine

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

10 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

4 sprigs thyme

4 bay leaves

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

6 cups beef broth

24 pearl onions

4 medium to large turnips

1 cup apple cider

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1. Place the brisket in a shallow pan or container that will hold it snugly. Mix the wine, brown sugar, garlic, thyme and bay leaves and pour over the meat. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 24 hours, turning the meat once.

2. Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Lift the brisket from the pan and scrape off the garlic and herbs, adding them to the marinade. Save the marinade. Pat the meat dry and season it with three-fourths-teaspoon salt and one-half-teaspoon freshly ground black pepper on each side. Warm the olive oil on the stove at medium high in a Dutch oven that fits the meat. Brown the meat evenly and carefully for 7 to 10 minutes. Add the marinade and bring to a boil. Pour in the beef broth to cover. Bring to a boil, remove from the heat and cover. Braise in the oven for 3 hours.

3. While the brisket is in the oven, bring a small pot of water to boil over high heat. Add the pearl onions, and blanch for about 1 minute. Remove the onions and shock in cold water. Cut off the ends of the onions, and squeeze off the outer skin. Peel, trim and quarter the turnips lengthwise.

4. Remove the brisket from the oven. Add the onions and turnips to the meat in the pan, spooning liquid from the pan over the brisket. Cover with foil and cook for 1 hour more, or until the turnips are fork tender.

5. Transfer the brisket to a cutting board, slice it against the grain in thin slices and place them on a warm platter. You will need a large spatula, as the meat may be starting to fall apart. Spoon vegetables around the meat, removing bay leaves and sprigs of thyme. Cover loosely and keep warm. Put the pan with the liquid (you will have about 6 1/2 cups) over medium to high heat. Add the cider and cider vinegar, bring to a boil, then lower the heat and reduce for about an hour until the sauce coats the back of a spoon (this makes a little more than 1 cup sauce). Taste and season the sauce as needed with salt and pepper.

6. Strain the sauce over the meat and vegetables and serve.

Each of 10 servings: 416 calories; 45 grams protein; 23 grams carbohydrates; 1 grams fiber; 12 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 87 mg. cholesterol; 765 mg. sodium.

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Friday night brisket

Total time: 5 hours and 25 minutes, plus cooling time

Servings: 8 to 10

Note: Adapted from Joan Nathan’s “Jewish Holiday Cookbook.” Bottled chile sauce such as Heinz Chili Sauce is widely available.

1 (4- to 5-pound) brisket

2 (1-ounce) packets onion soup mix

1 1/2 cups chile sauce

6 cloves garlic

1 1/2 pounds carrots

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the meat fat-side up in a large Dutch oven. Sprinkle the onion soup mix over the meat. Cover with the chile sauce and 2 cups of water, or more if needed to almost cover the meat. Crush the garlic cloves and add to the liquid.

2. Cover the pan and cook for 4 hours. Let the brisket cool for about 45 minutes and refrigerate overnight. Then skim the fat off the meat.

3. About 1 1/2 hours before you wish to serve the brisket, heat the oven to 350 degrees. Remove the brisket to a cutting board and slice it thinly across the grain. Trim, peel and cut the carrots into one-half-inch-by-2-inch sticks. Cook the brisket and carrots covered for 1 hour, until the brisket is heated through and the carrots are fork tender. (Alternatively, the brisket can be completed the same day: While the brisket is cooling for 45 minutes, trim, peel and cut the carrots into one-half-inch-by-2-inch sticks. Remove the brisket and slice it thinly across the grain. Skim the fat off the top of the liquid, add the sliced brisket back to the pan with the carrots, cover and bake at 350 degrees for 1 more hour, or until carrots are fork tender.) Serve on a platter.

Each of 10 servings: 346 calories; 44 grams protein; 18 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams fiber; 9 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 87 mg. cholesterol; 1,173 mg. sodium.