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Hanukkah is the one holiday of the year that celebrates oil. How could I not love it? Luckily for me, I grew up next-door to Mrs. Barton, an excellent cook and my "adoptive Jewish mother". Every year I remember her up to her elbows in the world's biggest Tupperware bowl, mixing up the potato pancakes.
As a newlywed, I was terrified hosting my first dinner party. I went over to Mrs. Barton's house to learn the secrets of her famous brisket. After the demo, I panicked. Mine would never turn out that perfectly! Like a television cook, she smiled and pulled out a finished brisket that she had already prepared for me the day before.
This Hanukkah, I am sharing her recipes with you. And then I am going to give her a call.
Recipes after the jump
MRS. BARTON'S BEEF BRISKET
1 3-pound brisket (not corned)
1 small jar "fresh minced garlic" (around 1/4 cup)
1 envelope Lipton's dry onion soup mix
1 can of beer
4 carrots, peeled and cut into 2" chunks.
6 small to medium potatoes, peeled and halved
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Trim excess fat from brisket. Pierce surface all over on both sides with a sharp knife.
Put brisket into a large, deep roasting pan.
Rub garlic into brisket, pressing it into the little openings that the knife just cut.
Rub the soup mix into the brisket. Pour beer over and cover tightly with aluminum foil.
Cook at 300 degrees for 4 or more hours, or cook at 250 degrees overnight.
Cool brisket completely and slice thinly against the grain. If you slice it while still hot, it will fall apart.
Reheat at 250 degrees.
POTATO PANCAKES (LATKES)
I think this is my own interpretation of Mrs' Barton's recipe, as I remember her using matzoh instead of flour. If you grate the potatoes straight into a bowl of water, it will help prevent discoloring. Nowadays I use a food processor, although many people think that changes the texture of the potatoes too much.
2 1/2 pounds baking potatoes
1 cup flour
2 eggs
3 Tablespoons grated onion
Salt and pepper to taste
Vegetable oil
Peel potatoes and grate fine. Add flour and eggs and blend well.
Add onion and season with salt and pepper.
Heat oil in the skillet until you can flick a drop of water into the oil and make it sizzle.
Spread a little of the pancake mixture onto a flat spatula, forming a thick pancake.
Carefully slide the pancake into the oil, flattening with the back of the spatula if it is too thick.
A regular-sized pan can probably hold three pancakes at a time.
Fry until golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper towels.
Eat while still warm with applesause (and sour cream if you can).
Happy Hanukkah!!!
Photo by Reesie via Flickr
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Awesome recipes...dry onion soup is one of those retro ingredients that actually works. As for grating the potatoes for latkes, I thought that grated knuckle was what made them great!
Comment from Mrs. Barton:
By the way, please don't be disappointed, but since I am never too old to learn new tricks, I have to confess that my daughter, who has turned out to be a really gourmet cook also, has taught me a few new ways to prepare some of my old standards, including the brisket, and I readily admit that I like hers better, so if you are interested I will be glad to send it to you.
Basically she substituted the beer with red wine (I use Trader Joe's 1.99 kind and it works), and she also browns it in olive oil in a heavy skillet on top of the stove, (which by the way my mother did and I had done until I started using the beer recipe. She also cooks the
brisket with the pressed garlic, topped with about 2 sliced onions in rings, Liptons onion soup at 400o. for the first hour, then she turns it down to 350 and adds the potatoes and carrots for the next hour.
I often just cook it at 400 the first hour then lower it to 350 and finish cooking it at 350o without adding the vegetables, the day before I am going to use it, then when cold we slice it and put it in a corning ware platter with just a little bit of the gravy-juice and onions to keep it moist. The rest of the gravy I save in another dish and put it in the fridge.
The next day, or when I am going to serve it, I cut the vegetables up and put it in the pan with the gravy and cook for about 45 minutes at about 350o. Then I put the brisket in the center of the corning ware and the vegetables around it, and it looks pretty and only one dish....
By the way the brisket freezes well if you make sure you leave some gravy with each saved portion with some gravy. The vegetables do not freeze well, so if I am serving it again, I make fresh veggies. Well, there I gave you the whole meggilah after all, you may not even be interested in trying it...but if you do, let me know, I think it tastes more like a roast whereas the old method if more soupy (but delicious as well, I know, and somewhat easier, at least no browning which is no big deal.