Around the Passover Table (34 page)

WHEN
you are ready to serve the brisket, scrape off any congealed fat from the surface, if you have refrigerated the dish. Transfer the cold meat to a cutting board, and slice the meat thinly across the grain at a slight diagonal.

PREPARE
the gravy: strain the braising mixture, reserving the onion-garlic mixture. Skim and discard as much fat as possible from the liquid. Puree the defatted liquid, together with about half the reserved onion-garlic mixture and the remaining
¹
⁄
₂
tablespoon vinegar, in a food processor or blender. Transfer the pureed mixture to the cleaned pan. Add the remaining onion-garlic mixture and boil over high heat for about 5 minutes to concentrate the gravy and marry the flavors. Reduce the heat, add the meat, and reheat it slowly in the gravy until piping hot. Taste and adjust seasoning.

ARRANGE
the sliced brisket on a serving platter. Spoon some of the hot sauce all over the meat and pass the rest in a separate sauce boat.

COOK'S NOTE:
If you don't have a pan large enough, you can cut the brisket in two and sauté it in batches. (The meat will shrink as it cooks, so that you will be able to fit it in one layer later.) Or sear the meat under the broiler: cover the broiler pan with foil to minimize cleanup. Place brisket, fat-side up, under a preheated broiler, and broil for 5 to 6 minutes on each side, or until nicely browned. Move the meat around as needed, so that it sears evenly.

Flanken with Tart Greens

yield:
4 to 5 servings

This dish is commonly translated as “boiled beef,” but it is actually beef long-simmered in water with aromatic vegetables. My grandmother's method uses a full-bodied beef or chicken broth instead as the cooking medium, along with plenty of earthy vegetables, producing succulent meat as well as a lusty-flavored soup. Though eight cups of broth may seem extravagant, in effect you are borrowing it and returning it deepened by the vibrant flavors of the meat and vegetables, as a husky soup that really sings, ready to be served at another meal. To garnish it, ladle the soup over egg noodles and sprinkle with lots of chopped fresh dill. Offered solo, the broth is wonderfully restorative on frosty days, and it makes a refined opener to a rich meat dinner.

Flanken is a bony Jewish cut of beef made by cutting short ribs across the bone. It is available in kosher butcher shops and from many nonkosher butchers in areas with large Jewish populations. If unavailable, you can substitute chuck short ribs.

Horseradish, the traditional accompaniment to flanken, can overpower the almost-sweet meat. I prefer broccoli rabe, whose gentle bitterness plays well against the richness of the beef. But I have both horseradish and mustard available for guests who insist.

4 pounds lean beef flanken

8 cups
Beef Stock
; chicken broth, preferably
homemade
, or good-quality, low-sodium
purchased

1 large onion, thickly sliced

3 large garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

2 carrots, scraped and quartered

1 parsnip, peeled and quartered

1 parsley root, peeled (optional)

2 celery stalks, including leaves if available, quartered

1 bay leaf, preferably Turkish

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

FOR THE GREENS

1 pound broccoli rabe, cleaned, stems trimmed and cut into bite-size pieces, leaves and florets coarsely chopped, or an equal amount of trimmed, roughly chopped kale, mustard or turnip greens

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

2 tablespoons olive oil

¹
⁄
₈
teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (optional)

Salt

About 3 tablespoons broth from the flanken

Accompaniments: kosher sour dill pickles, coarse salt, grated horseradish, and sharp mustard (for traditional tastes, if desired)

PUT
the beef and stock in a 6-quart Dutch oven or wide heavy saucepan, partially cover, and bring to a bare simmer: the liquid shivering, occasional bubbles breaking gently and noiselessly on the surface. Don't allow the liquid to come to a boil; that will make the broth cloudy and the meat tough. Regulate the heat as necessary. Use a skimmer to remove as much foam and scum as possible as they rise to the surface.

AFTER
the flanken has simmered for about 30 minutes, add the onion, garlic, carrots, parsnip, parsley root, if using, celery, and bay leaf. Season to taste with salt and pepper, bearing in mind that if you started with a salted broth, it will get saltier as it cooks down. Place the lid slightly askew and continue cooking over very low heat for 2
¹
⁄
₂
to 3 hours, or until the meat is fork-tender. Let the flanken rest in the broth for about 15 minutes, then take it out and arrange it on a serving platter. Spoon a little of the broth over the meat to keep it moist. (If you need to reheat the flanken, simmer it in enough broth to cover.)

STRAIN
the soup, discarding or reserving the cooked vegetables according to preference (they will be quite soft; I usually discard all but the carrot and sometimes the parsnip and parsley root). Remove as much fat as possible from the broth by refrigerating it thoroughly until the fat solidifies, then just lifting it off. (You can deal with the soup at your leisure, of course, if you are in a hurry to get the flanken on the table.) Reserve 3 tablespoons of the broth for the greens.

ABOUT
30 minutes before you are ready to serve the flanken, prepare the greens: bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Add the broccoli rabe or other greens, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender but not mushy, about 4 minutes. Drain thoroughly.

IN
a large heavy skillet, sauté the garlic in the oil over medium-low heat, stirring, for 1 minute, until pale golden (do
not
let it brown). Add cooked greens, raise the heat to medium, and sauté for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the reserved flanken broth, the pepper flakes, if using, and salt to taste, and continue cooking for another 3 minutes, lifting and tossing the greens, to meld the flavors.

SLICE
the flanken across the grain. Serve each guest a portion of broccoli rabe topped with slices of flanken. If desired, ladle a little hot broth over the meat to moisten it. Pass the pickles and coarse salt, and for the tradition-bound, horseradish and mustard.

Fresh Raspberry Applesauce

yield:
About 3 cups

“Is there a blessing for a sewing machine?” Tzeitel, Tevye's daughter, asks the rabbi in
Fiddler on the Roof
. “There is a blessing for everything,” she is assured.

In addition to the well-known prayers Jews recite when eating bread or drinking wine, there are many blessings to be uttered when relishing the beauty of the universe: seeing a rainbow, inhaling aromatic spices, and a charming one reserved for enjoying especially fragrant fruits.

That is the one for this raspberry applesauce, perfumed with the scent of fresh berries and vanilla—with a splash, perhaps, of rose water. Like exotic Indian desserts, the fragrant taste of rose water is not to everyone's liking, but my daughter and I are very fond of it, in gentle doses.
Potchkehing
with this sauce on a warm September day, we found that a small amount of rose water enhances the raspberry flavor and aroma. Not surprising. With shared attributes like a protective armor of thorns and sensuous perfume, the raspberry and the rose, after all, are cousins.

About 2 cups raspberry- or other berry-flavored fruit juice such as raspberry-cranberry, apple-raspberry, or apple-strawberry (use pure, unsweetened juice, not juice cocktail, if possible)

1 vanilla bean, split

Salt

About 2 pounds flavorful apples, unpeeled, cored, and cut into chunks (6 cups; sweet varieties with lots of character, such as Gravenstein, Gala, Braeburn, and Jonathan)

1 cup fresh raspberries (about 6 ounces)

Light floral honey (orange blossom would be perfect) or sugar (optional)

A few drops of rose water (optional)

YOU'LL
be reducing the juice quite a bit, so choose a large Dutch oven or a very wide, heavy saucepan large enough to accommodate all of the fruit. Put in 2 cups juice, the vanilla bean, and a pinch of salt. Cook, uncovered, over high heat, until reduced to about
¹
⁄
₂
cup of thick, syrupy liquid.

ADD
the apples and mix well to coat them with the juice. Cover the pan and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes. Stir from time to time, and add a little more juice, if needed, to prevent sticking.

STIR
in the raspberries and cook for 5 to 10 minutes, until all of the fruit is very soft. When ready, the mixture should be thick and pulpy, with almost no liquid visible. If necessary, boil it a few minutes, uncovered, to evaporate any remaining liquid.

REMOVE
the vanilla bean (if desired, rinse and dry it, so it can be reused or added to granulated sugar to flavor it). Put the sauce through the fine disk of a food mill or push the solids through a fine-mesh strainer to trap the apple skins and at least some of the raspberry seeds.

VIBRANT
with raspberries, this sauce may be a bit tart for some palates, especially if the apples are somewhat tangy. If so, add a little honey or sugar to taste while the sauce is still warm. And, if desired, stir in the rose water.

COVER
and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.