Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Passover Brisket and Latkes!

Good morning and salutations everyone!

I’d like to thank the entire kommentariat for their work last week welcoming in the new pope. 

You can tell he’s new because he still has that new pope smell. 

Everyone did their best to ring in the occasion with decorum, dignity, sincerity and gravitas as such a solemn occasion dictates. 

You were all remarkable in your restraint. 

We’ve touched on my whatever- the- fuck religious upbringing before. It was completely insane and utterly non structured. 

Despite my parents feeble attempt at bringing religion, worship and structure into my early childhood, frankly? I always thought it was bullshit.

I may be wrong. First to admit it. The whole thing always felt, I don’t know, like a con? Maybe it was the fact that my mom’s family went from baptist to Assembly of God to Pentecostal.

Congrats to the first person who can clearly delineate the difference between those 3 systems. 

It always felt like a greasy money grab to me.

Fuck, I got to give you 10% of my earnings for whatever the fuck a “tithe” is? Know what that sounded like to an 8 year old kid?

Like a fucking shakedown. Like you’re paying off the neighborhood mob for protection.

Think about it for a second. Ain’t that exactly the very definition of “Protection money?” Instead of paying the local goons to keep you safe, you’re paying a sizeable chunk of your hard earned wages for what?

A golden ticket to the heavenly chocolate factory? Sure sounds all on the up and up to me, boy.

Guess this clearly shows I’m no religious scholar. 

Which brings us to our menu for the day. 

The meal doesn’t involve any spiritual significance for me I just love me some fucking brisket and it WAS Passover the day we made this so…

We are going back, once again, to Slate Magazine’s top 25 most important recipes of the last 100 years. Yeah, we’ve done a few of these already. And there may just be another one next week! How’s that shit for timing?

When reading the Slate article for the first time this particular recipe jumped out and said “Make this shit!”

The reasons are very simple. First, I fucking love me some brisket, whichever preparation you got I will try the living FUCK out of it.

[From season 1 – the Season finale back in 2015! My favorite slow roasted brisket recipe.]

Second reason?

Here’s your recipe!

That’s it. Oh shit howdy, Hell yes I want to make that!

Let’s get the words of what makes this recipe one of the most important recipes of the last 100 years directly from Slate.

“It’s the recipe of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, a holy tradition of our own,” said Helen Rosner of the New Yorker, and a brisket slow-roasted in liquid, a few vegetables, and Lipton onion soup mix is, for many American Jews, the very definition of the Passover table. Lipton started making dehydrated soup mixes in 1952, and it took no time at all for home cooks to figure out that all those dried onions, yeast extracts, and delicious glutamates could impart instant flavor to a casserole or roast.

What greater metaphor for the relief and the reinvention of the postwar years than—thanks to the mercies of the American industrialized food system and the abundance of the American supermarket—no longer needing to stand in the kitchen and weep?”

Basically when you break down this recipe it equates to this formula – shown here in picture form.

Plus

Gives us this!

While that is a little simplistic, I tell ya? It ain’t that far from the truth. Easy as a motherfucker today.

Here’s your “sauce” lineup of ingredients.

For the record, that egg sandwich you see in the front of the photo is one of those 7-11 Japanese milk bread egg salad sandwiches that are all the hip and happening thing these days.

It…

Needed a shitload more flavor if you’re going to impress my ass.

Bread had an almost Twinkie type texture. Maybe something got lost during shipping. Of course I had to try it though. For science and shit.

That’s one tasty goddamn potato chip though.

I digress again, dammit.

Mix up your goddamn sauce already.

If you couldn’t read the recipe from that photo up there I’ll give it here.

Brisket, about 3 pounds

1 packet of Lipton onion soup mix

1/2 cup of ketchup

3/4 cup of water.

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper

Yep.

Make sure your meat is at room temperature and slap the bigass slab into a roasting pan.

That’s a good looking hunk of brisket right there. You did notice the price earlier?

That’s where the real work came from. Affording it.

Get to slatherin’!

Loosely cover with aluminum foil and then into the preheated 325 degree oven she goes for about 3 hours.

You will be drooling like Pavlov’s dog by the half hour mark and it will seem like it cooks forever after that.

Latke time! 

Recipe’s in that link up there from season 1.

Peel and grate the potatoes.

Grate the onion. You can alternate onion, potato for a better mixing of flavors if you like.

Squeeze all of the water out of the potatoes.

Yes, this a seriously messy fucking step. That potato starch gets everywhere and the [hopefully] clean kitchen towel you used will sure as shit be clean no longer.

Crack an egg.

Add to potatoes and onions.

Giving us this.

Spoon into a lightly greased and smokin’ hot cast iron skillet.

A few minutes to get ’em crispy, then flip over.

Subsequent batches ALWAYS turn out better. That’s the truth. My best food photos ALWAYS come from one of the last batches whenever I’m pan frying something like this.

Much better. That’s the golden brown loveliness we’re looking for.

When it’s done, get the brisket out of the oven and let rest for 10-15 minutes or so before slicing.

Let’s get a look at her.

Now I can fuck with that. Holy fucking shit this goddamn thing smells awesome.

Slice it up after it’s rested.

Take note of the cutting board. The soup mix plus the cooked fat from the brisket after cooking for three hours creates a juice substance that looks like it just WANTS to stain your fucking shirt. Maybe don’t wear white when slicing the brisket.

Plate that shit!

Don’t forget the applesauce on your latkes! Sour cream would be acceptable too but we’re trying to stay “Kosher-ish?”

For the ease of preparation to delivered flavor this thing is fucking outstanding. You can tell when a brisket is cooked well when you can cut it into thick slices and it remains tender to bite in to. This was crazy tender. The salt and onions from the soup mix? Shit, what am I telling you for? You already know that flavor profile.

Quick safety tip from experience here. If you slice the brisket into thick slices be sure to cut off little bites with your fork and fully chew. I know you just want to wolf that shit down, like I tried to do but the thick slice when you bite a piece off comes out as a wad of flesh that fits perfectly into your throat. And by perfectly I mean it stops up your throat like a goddamn drain stopper. Damn near had to give myself the Heimlich.

Be patient. Chew your food thoroughly and savor it. I ain’t even telling you all this shit, this is a reminder to my dumb ass in the future.

If by some strange occurance you end up having leftover brisket, yeah you know what to do.

Brisket fucking hash, Baby. Good enough to almost be the sole reason for making this brisket. Goddamn do I love a good hash.

This weeks positive “holidays” for May 11th – courtesy of “A Bit of Good News” – are: “May 11 is World Belly Dance Day, World Fair Trade Day, National Archery Day, National Babysitter Day, National Mini Golf Day, National Dog Moms Day, National Twilight Zone Day, National Windmill Day, Hostess Cupcake Day and Mother’s Day.”

Lots to work with there.

If your mother is still alive and you like her, give her a call today but you decide. I can’t force Mother’s Day down anyone’s throat since I don’t observe it but you do you.

Have a great rest of your day. Enjoy the sun if you have some, watch some sports, have a drink if you like but most importantly have a good Sunday.

See you next week.

Until then…