Recipe
Ingredients:
One brisket (five pounds)
8 cloves garlic
Salt
1 quart beef stock
2 vidalia
1 cup ketchup
¼ cup brown sugar
1 tsp. Paprika
1 tsp. smoked paprika
¼ tsp. Cayenne
½ tsp. Dried thyme
2 bay leaves
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 500° fahrenheit.
Using a knife, make vertical incisions in the meat and place a piece of garlic into each cut. Season both sides of the meat with salt and pepper. Place brisket in a large dutch oven or rimmed baking dish with the fatty side facing up. Brown it in the oven for about ten minutes each side.
Remove from the oven and pour in beef stock.
Turn the oven down to 350° fahrenheit. Cover the dish with aluminum foil and cook in the oven for an hour.
Remove the brisket from the oven after an hour and add your ketchup, sugar, paprika, cayenne, thyme, smoked paprika, and bay leaves. Mix everything together and add your onions. Cover and put it back in the oven for 2-3 hours.
Remove from the oven, cut, and enjoy.
Family Significance:
My immediate family is ethnically Jewish, so I have not had much experience with religious Jewish holidays throughout my life. As I have grown, so has my curiosity, resulting in my first ever Rosh Hashanah celebration. When I presented the idea, there were no objections. Though my immediate family isn’t observant, my second degree relatives and many family friends are, so I reached out to them as well as the internet. We created a menu, with many of the foods that we already had been eating my whole life, but also new foods I had never tried. I am a fairly selective eater, preferring to have what I know, but celebrating the new year came with new foods and brisket was one of these. I had technically tried brisket before, once, but never liked it. This time, I can confidently say that I didn’t dislike it, which is a step up. My grandfather and father both love brisket, and since it is an important staple for the holiday, religion, and culture, we made it and had an amazing new years celebration.
Cultural Significance:
Brisket is a classic food to many Jews. It is served at a multitude of holidays, including Rosh Hashanah, Chanukah, Passover, and Shabbos. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year, and it includes brisket as a main dish in the holiday. The meat was used widely in Europe during the 1600s because it had a long shelf life when cured and boiled. It became a Jewish staple because of a few different reasons. Brisket is one of the few large cuts of beef that are kosher, making it great for holidays. It also was considerably cheaper than other meats due to its lengthy cooking process, however this was perfect for Jewish cooks because they could start the cooking process before the Sabbath and have it the day after the Sabbath.