Food!

Food is pretty good isn’t it? Especially when it tastes really, really good. I love food. I bet you do too.

I had friends over for lunch and an afternoon visit a week or so ago. I fed them one of my favorite home-made soups … caramelized beef brisket with fresh vegetables. Mmm, mm, mm! I love it so much that I make it just for myself sometimes.

After lunch that day, those friends of mine asked for the recipe for that soup and I promised to share it with them. And then just a couple of days ago, I wondered why I don’t just share it with all of you folks too. So … here it is!

 

Caramelized Pasilla Beef Brisket

Ingredients:

• 4# beef brisket (cut the hunks of fat off)
• 1 tsp salt
• black pepper
• 6 T olive oil
• 2 ounces (5-6) dried pasilla chiles (remove stems and seeds, do NOT wipe your eyes with your fingers while you are removing the seeds, wash your hands thoroughly afterwards, those seeds are some spicy things!). Leave the chiles in large pieces so you can find them and pull them out of the stew pot later.
• 1-1/2 pounds tomatillos (remove loose paper-like husk then rinse and cut in quarters)
• 1 large white onion (cut into chunks)
• 10 garlic cloves (peeled and diced)
• 4 cups vegetable broth (don’t use chicken broth, it changes the flavor)
• 4 ounces brown sugar (or Mexican piloncillo that, I’m told, has a different taste than regular brown sugar)
• 1 tsp salt
• black pepper

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, lower the bottom rack as far as possible and remove the other racks.
• Rub 1 tsp salt and some black pepper on the meat (all sides).
• Heat the olive oil in a very large pot on your stove top on high.
• Brown the brisket in the pot for 2-3 minutes on each side. You may need to cut the brisket into 2 or 3 sections in order to fit the entire brisket into the bottom of your pot all at one time … make it a large pot!
• To the pot add chiles, tomatillos, onion, garlic, brown sugar, salt, pepper … lastly add in the broth.
• Make sure everything is covered by the broth (white wine can be added if you wish).
• Cover with a tight fitting lid. I use aluminum foil and I make sure the aluminum dips down in the middle so any steam/juices will fall back into the pot while the meat is cooking.
• Put the whole thing, pot, meat, vegies, aluminum foil cover, everything, in the oven. Cook 3-1/2 hours or until meat is tender.
• About 45 minutes before that meat cooking time is done, before the meat is done, I steam fresh vegetables for 15 minutes (carrots, potatoes, broccoli, snap peas, large chunks of red pepper, etc), again in a large pot on the stovetop. As soon as that 15 minutes of vegetable steaming is done, I pull the meat pot out of the oven and then I put all of those steamed vegetables into the pot of meat and put the pot full of meat and vegetables back into the oven for the final 30 minutes.
• At the very end of the cooking time, use a cutting board to cut the meat into slices or chunks, as you prefer, and return the meat to the soup/stew. (Or the meat can be pulled out and served by itself, and then the vegies and juice served separately too.)
• Remove the Pasilla chiles from the stew.
• Pour the whole concoction into a LARGE bowl, or just put the pot on the table, and sprinkle the soup/stew with parsley or arugula or cilantro.
• Serve with rice or quinoa, maybe with fresh bread or fresh tortillas, maybe a salad on the side with some healthy slices of raw Jicama in the salad for a sweet and crunchy compliment to the stew.

Make a very large amount of this stew/soup. Make way more than you think your guests will eat. Because, you will want leftovers! Have freezer containers on hand so you can freeze meal-size portions that you can thaw out later for yourself and/or for other guests.

The photo above is from Pati Jinich’s website, https://patijinich.com/. Her show on TV is one of my favorites. The recipe I have shared here is slightly different from hers, but it’s similar. I found my recipe somewhere else, not from Pati, but just looking at the photo (above) from her website makes me want to go cook up more of this delicious Mexican stew.

For those of you who don’t eat meat, you might try the recipe with just the vegetables and spices. Let us know how it goes. I’d bet it, too, will be delicioso!

Gracias a todos. Buena comida!