Recipe: Brisket Chili

We have been toying around with the idea of the perfect chili for a while now. Of course, depending on your location and heritage, there are a thousand different variations on a classic. Beans or no beans? Pork or beef? Do you use a whole muscle or ground meat? What cut? And then, what kind of chiles do you use? Researching a "classic" chili doesn't answer many questions as much as it just asks more. And so we stewed (get it!?) on these questions happily, experimenting and tasting along the way. It's a hard job, but someone has to do it.

At long last, we decided: beans on the side; beef; whole muscle; brisket, ancho and chipotle chilies. And since the only thing more American than apple pie is chili, we debuted our well-tested recipe on election day for a group of hungry and anxious friends.

 
As he was closing up shop Monday night, Jake grabbed a gorgeous and fatty Whippoorwill brisket, along with some Cayuga black turtle beans, Wild Hive cornmeal, two quarts of beef stock, and a few ancho and chipotle chili peppers. On Tuesday afternoon, he put the brisket in the oven, the beans on the stove top, and let everything simmer away. Meanwhile, Silka made some skillet cornbread to soak up the smokey, spicy sauce.

In the end we couldn't have been happier with the results... ALL of them.
 

Brisket Chili

+ 4 tablespoons of lard or bacon drippings
+ 1 whole beef brisket, with lots of fat (roughly 6 lbs)
+ Sea salt
+ 2 medium onions, chopped
+ 4 cloves garlic, crushed
+ 3 teaspoons sweet smoked paprika
+ 3 teaspoons cumin
+ 4 dried chipotle chillies
+ 4 dried ancho chillies
+ ¼ cup brown sugar
+ 2 tablespoons tomato paste
+ 2 cans of plum tomatoes
+ 2 quarts beef stock
 

To prepare:
Bring the brisket out of the fridge at least one hour prior to cooking so it comes to room temperature. At the same time, soak the dried chilies in hot water for about ½ hour.

1. Pat the brisket dry and coat with salt. (We used smoked salt - if you can find it, we recommend it!). Preheat the oven to 250.
2. Heat the lard in a large dutch oven over high heat.
3. When the lard starts to smoke, brown the brisket for 3 minutes on each side. Set brisket aside.
4. Add the onion and garlic to the pan, cooking until softened.
5. Add the paprika, cumin, sugar, tomato paste and chillies, cooking for an additional minute.
5. Return the brisket to the pan along with tomatoes and stock. Bring to a boil and cover.
6. Place in the oven for 6 hours, removing the lid for the final 1 ½ hours of cooking.
7. After you have removed the the brisket from the oven, take the brisket out of its sauce, place in a deep dish and let rest.

8. With an immersion blender, or in a food processor or blender, puree the sauce remaining in the dutch over and reduce for about ½ hour. 

9. Serve brisket with the chili sauce poured on top, beans and cornbread on the side. 

Serves 8-12.

Recipe: Chicken in 40 Cloves

As much as we love a good BBQ and summer produce, we’re excited to watch the leaves turn yellow and red and feel the days shorten because that means our meals are starting to change as well. Fall is really our favorite season for cooking. Braises, roasts, Brussels sprouts and squashes... we just can’t get enough. The thing is, most of those autumnal foods require a fair amount of time to prepare. And while there is nothing better than slowly braising a lam neck for 8 hours as you read by the fire, right now we just don't have the time for that.



Luckily, we have access to plenty of chicken! With just a few simple ingredients, chicken lends itself to a quick braise - all that deep, warming flavor we crave within a reasonable weeknight's cook time. For one of our first fall stews Jake brought home a chicken, a quart of stock and 4 heads of garlic while Silka picked up a bottle of dry white wine and some cookies. (Obviously, the cookies were not used in the preparation of the chicken.) In under an hour we were sitting down to a gorgeous meal, in front of a roaring fire and in a warm house filled with the scent of slowly roasted, caramelized garlic.


Chicken in 40 Cloves

+ 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
+ 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
+ 1 chicken, cut into 8 pieces, at room temperature
+ Salt
+ about 40 large garlic cloves, or heads or garlic, peeled
+ 1/2 cup dry white wine
+ 1/2 cup chicken stock

1. Pat the chicken pieces dry and season liberally with salt.
2. Add oil and butter to a dutch oven over a high flame.
3. When the fats are hot but not smoking add chicken pieces, skin side down, and cook until skin turns an even, golden brown - about 3 minutes. Turn over to brown other side and when done, set pieces aside. Work in batches to cook all the meat.
4. Reduce heat to medium. Place the garlic cloves at the bottom of the skillet and sauté until garlic is lightly browned on all sides - about 10 minutes.
5. Add the chicken on top of the garlic then pour in the wine and stock.
6. Cover and continue cooking until juices run clear when a thigh is pricked - 10 to 15 minutes more.
7. Take cover off and place under the broiler for 5 minutes to re-crisp skin of the chicken. Serve over rice or potatoes.

Sunday Dinner: Braised Pheasant in White Wine over Polenta

This weekend we had our hearts set on Rabbit Ragu. So early Saturday afternoon we strolled over to the bustling Union Square Greenmarket to buy a rabbit from Quattro’s. Well, lesson learned - if you want rabbit with all your heart, you better pounce early. There we stood, rabbit-less, in the sunny-weather craze of the Saturday market. We felt too flustered to come up with another solid game plan then and there, so we just picked the next thing we laid eyes on - a pheasant! Now, neither of us were at all familiar with pheasant - Silka had never tasted it and Jake had never cooked it. But we knew we'd be watching Downton Abbey on Sunday night (duh!), and it seemed in keeping with a theme, so we thought we may as well. Luckily Quattro’s handed us a recipe sheet, and we went home to study up.

After looking at our pantry's contents, we decided to do a take on Quattro’s recipe for Braised Pheasant Marsala. Since we didn't have any Marsala - mostly because we don't really like it - we used Dr. Frank’s Semi-Dry Riesling. With some nice white "Special" mushrooms from Bulich, we were all set. As a base, we went with some lightly cheesy polenta, thinking it would go perfectly with a nice drizzle of braising juices. And of course, we made a simple green salad to round out the meal. 

While we're not sure Downton Abbey would have gone the polenta route, the nature of the warming and earthy pheasant dish seemed fitting for an English manor house. Their pheasant would have been hunted wild and had a much gamier flavor, but our 21st-century feast stood up just fine. Wild or not, our bird was gamier than chicken but not nearly as gamy as duck ... and super moist! We're looking forward to exploring this bird more - and in a couple more years, who knows, we might be out there just like Hank Shaw or the Crawley's, hunting our own game birds.

Braised Pheasant in White Wine

+ 1 2.5 lb Pheasant, cut into 6 pieces

+ 5 shallots, finally chopped

+ 1 lb of White Mushrooms, sliced

+ 2 cloves of garlic

+ 1 tsp fresh herbs - we used rosemary and thyme, but tarragon or sage would work well

+ ½ cup chicken or pheasant stock - we boiled some chicken stock with the giblets and the backbone of the pheasant

+ ¼ cup semi-dry or dry Riesling

+ 1 tbsp flour

+ salt and pepper

+ olive oil or lard

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a heavy frying pan or cast iron skillet heat up 2 tablespoons of lard or olive oil over high heat. Pat the pheasant pieces dry and salt and brown in batches. Place the browned pheasant in a deep baking dish.

3. In the same pan, saute the mushrooms for about 5 minutes, adding more lard or olive oil if needed. Pour the mushrooms over the pheasant.

4. Saute the shallots and garlic in the same pan, adding more fat if needed, for another five minutes.

5. Slowly whisk in flour until fully integrated, and cook for another 3 minutes. Add wine, stock, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Simmer, stirring, for 5 minutes.

6. Pour mixture over pheasant and mushrooms, and put in oven for about 2 hours - or until the meat easily falls off the bone.

Serves 2 people with leftovers

Sunday Dinner: Braised Pork Butt in Milk with Cornbread and Summer Squash & Cherry Tomatoes

We relish our weekends because that's when we get to try out the more elaborate and involved meals we've been dreaming about all week. Since we love to entertain, more often than not these "Sunday Dinners" turn into leisurely (and fairly bacchanalian) evenings with hungry friends.

Whether it's a seasonal vegetable side or a 12-hour roast, we usually start our weekend menu with one particular dish and build the rest of the meal around it by wandering around at the Green Market. On special occasions- or when we think ahead- we'll order a special cut of meat from our friends at Fleisher’s Meats. 

For the first of our Sunday Dinner posts we'd like to share a meal we made for our good friends Christian and Lauren of Material Lust. They came over to our apartment to shoot photos for a feature they are writing about us on one of our favorite blogs, Sacramento Street. 

For the shoot, Jake did a butchering demo and since we don't exactly have enough room to cut up a whole animal in our apartment, he de-boned a pork butt instead (actually the pork shoulder). With our freshly cut butt we decided to make a classic and extremely simple Italian dish- Braised Pork Butt in Milk. Sounds weird, but it's so good. As the butt cooks the fat melts out and mixes with the milk, slowly condensing and curdling into a rich nutty brown gravy. As with any braise, the pork becomes incredibly moist and tender, and it takes on the delicate flavor of the milk.

With that dish in mind, Silka baked a corn bread recipe she's had her eye on for a while and we roasted some yellow summer squash with cherry tomatoes from Migliorelli's. And for a salad, we picked up some luscious greens from Two Guys from Woodbridge. 

Since the meal is pretty heavy and we were all exhausted from a day of shooting and cooking, we topped the meal off with our favorite, Bulleit bourbon on the rocks.

Pork Butt Braised in Milk

Adapted from Marcela Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

+ a 2-3 lbs boneless pork shoulder/butt with cross-hatched skin

+ a quart of milk - non-homogenized or raw if you can get it

+ bay-leaves, peppercorns, juniper berries, and nutmeg (optional)

1. In a heavy cast iron or enamel dutch oven, heat a couple tablespoons each of butter and olive oil over high heat. When the butter stops foaming add the pork, skin side down. When it's browned turn the pork from side to side, a few minutes per side.

2. When the pork is browned on all sides, pour in two cups of milk. If you want you can also throw in a few bay-leaves, 5 whole peppercorns, 5 juniper berries, and some grated nutmeg. 

3. Bring the milk to a simmer then turn the heat to low and cover with the lid slightly ajar. Check the pork every now and then, turning it onto a different side. 

4. After about an hour the milk should be curdled and look like a nutty brown sauce. At this point add another cup of milk and turn the heat to medium-high. Let the milk simmer for 10 minutes then turn the heat back down to low and cover completely. 

5. Let the pork cook for another two hours or so, checking and turning occasionally. You should add more milk if all the liquid boils off.

6. When the pork is tender and falling apart, take it out and place in a glass baking dish or an all-metal pan. Put the pan and pork under the broiler, skin side up, until the skin is crisped golden brown- about 3 minutes. Make sure to watch the pork carefully, as it can burn easily and quickly.

7. Meanwhile bring the sauce left in the dutch oven to a boil, adding a few tablespoons of water. Stir until the water is incorporated and you have a nice gravy.

8. Serve the pork covered in the sauce.

Yellow Summer Squash with Cherry Tomatoes

+ 4 medium sized summer squash or zucchini

+ a pint of cherry tomatoes

+ olive oil

+ salt and pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 400.

2. Slice the summer squash lengthwise about a ¼ in thick. (A mandoline is perfect for this.)

3. Lay the squash down in the baking dish. Don't be afraid to overlap them. Throw the cherry tomatoes on top and drizzle olive oil all over - 1-2 tablespoons. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

4. Bake for an hour, or till the squash is translucent and golden and the cherry tomatoes are puckered and bursting with juice.

Sour Cream Cornbread with Aleppo

From Smitten Kitchen