Passover Brisket

@levanacooks

Celebrity chef Lévana Kirschenbaum has been offering cooking demonstration for over thirty years of nutritious and exotic cuisine. She gets countless devoted fans for her fearless, practical and nutritious approach to cooking, and spreads the good word on simple, streamlined, elegant and wholesome dining. Today, she's in Tonia's Kitchen with this great recipe for Passover Brisket. Click on the link below to hear more...

Brisket in Coffee Brandy Sauce Recipe

"Another brisket of mine with wacky ingredients that comes out to die for!  This star was recently born when I was tinkering with coffee, molasses and bourbon, a frequent combo in barbecues and short ribs,  as a possible base for my  brisket sauce, and I know it sounds like it would put some more hair on the chests of lumberjacks; but lo and behold, the results were fork-tender meat, and a wonderfully  dark, balanced and unctuous sauce, much  more  toned down than the seemingly reckless sum of its parts.

To adapt the dish for Passover I simply substituted honey for the molasses, and brandy for the bourbon, and it worked just as gloriously. Go for it! PS: Please don’t believe anyone who will tell you first-cut brisket is not as moist and tender as its second-cut fat an unappealing slab of a counterpart: they will never say that again after they taste this!"

Ingredients:
2 large onions, sliced very thin
1 brisket. 6 to 7 pounds, first cut. Rinsed and patted thoroughly dry
3 tablespoons instant coffee powder, decaf OK, mixed with 2 cups warm water
1/3 cup brandy (year-round: Bourbon)
1/3 cup honey (year-round: Molasses)
¼ cup vinegar
½ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon ground pepper

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Scatter the onions in a pan just large enough to fit the meat. Place the brisket on top of the onions. Combine all remaining ingredients in a bowl, and pour the mixture evenly over the meat. Cover tightly with foil, and bake 2 hours. Turn the brisket over, and bake uncovered 1 more hour. Transfer the brisket to a cutting board and wait about 10 minutes before slicing. Meanwhile strain the cooking liquids into a small sauce pan, pressing hard on the solids (and discarding them), and reduce on a high flame to about 2 ½ cups. Let the brisket cool slightly. Slice thin against the grain. In places where the brisket is very long, cut across first before slicing. Pour the gravy on top.