The Great American Slow Cooker Book (34 page)

1
Make an even layer of half the onions in the slow cooker. Set the brisket on top. (Slice the brisket into pieces if it won’t fit easily.)

2
Stir the remainder of the onions with the tomatoes, molasses, vinegar, garlic, chipotles, coriander, cumin, chile powder, salt, pepper, and bay leaves in a large bowl, until the molasses dissolves into the mixture. Pour over the brisket.

3
Cover and cook on low for 10 hours in a small cooker, 11 hours in a medium cooker, or 12 hours in a large cooker, or until the brisket is so tender it can be shredded with a fork.

4
Discard the bay leaves. Shred the brisket right in the slow cooker, using two forks to pull it into shards and pieces; stir these into the sauce.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
If you’re not from Texas, you may not have heard of pulled brisket. Just think of it as the cow equivalent of pulled pork. Better still, this sauce is even bolder than that for
Basic Pulled Pork
—aromatic and laced with warm spices.

•
There’s a lot of heat here, what with the chipotles and the ancho chile powder. Seed the chipotles, if you’re concerned. Just make sure you use one, two, or three canned chiles,
not
one, two, or three cans of chiles.

•
Use a sturdy, flavorful, low-grade balsamic vinegar, not the best stuff.

INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
Standard supermarket chili powder is a blend of powdered dried chiles, ground cumin, and dried oregano. If possible, use a blend without added salt—or omit the salt from the recipe if your bottle is so laced.

Pure chile powder, like the ancho chile powder used here, omits all the other ingredients and so contains nothing but powdered, dried chiles. These varieties are always labeled by the type of chile: ancho, chipotle, or what have you.

Serve It Up!
You’ll want hamburger buns or Kaiser rolls as a start—and then shredded iceberg lettuce, chopped tomatoes, jarred pickle relish, and/or jarred chow-chow to top the sandwiches. We’ve even been known to heap the brisket into buns and top it all with coleslaw!

1
Sprinkle both sides of the brisket with the paprika, garlic powder, salt, and pepper; set it in the slow cooker.

2
Sprinkle the carrots, onions, celery, and bay leaves around and on the brisket. Pour in the wine and Worcestershire sauce.

3
Cover and cook on low for 8 hours in a small cooker, 9 hours in a medium cooker, or 10 hours in a large cooker, or until the brisket is tender but can still be sliced into pieces without shredding.

4
Transfer to a cutting board; cool for 10 minutes for the best flavor. Discard the bay leaves.
Slice the meat against the grain
into ¼-inch-thick pieces). Ladle the vegetables and sauce into the bowls with the slices.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
This braised brisket is a version of the traditional one made for Passover and some other Jewish holidays—although we’ve nixed the tomatoes and gone with a French vegetable mélange.

•
Don’t get hung up on timing—brisket is notorious for getting tender at its own rate. Start checking at the 7-hour mark and see where you are. If dinner is at an exact hour without leeway, consider making this the day before, storing it covered in the fridge, and reheating it in a tightly sealed foil packet or a tightly covered roasting pan in a 350°F oven for 20 minutes.

INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
Bay leaves are considered a dried food ingredient. If you’re lucky enough to have fresh bay leaves, cut the suggested amount in half unless you’re fond of the aromatic punch they provide. Even fresh bay leaves should be discarded from a dish before serving.

Serve It Up!
For a more substantial sauce, remove all the meat and vegetables from the liquid in the slow cooker, then strain that liquid through a fine-mesh colander or sieve into a bowl. (Work in the sink to avoid a messy cleanup.) Bring the strained sauce to a boil in a saucepan set over medium-high heat. Boil for 1 or 2 minutes to concentrate the flavors, then stir in 1 to 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar to brighten the flavors.

1
Mix the brown sugar, paprika, cumin, thyme, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, and salt in a small bowl.

2
Prepare the ribs by separating the rack into individual bones, then cut each bone in half widthwise if you have a round cooker rather than an oval one. (You might need a food-safe hacksaw for the latter task, or you can ask the butcher at your market to saw the ribs in half for you.)

3
Massage the rub into the ribs, pile them into the slow cooker, cover, and cook on low for 9 hours, or until the meat is tender at the bone yet still juicy.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
Who says you can’t barbecue ribs in the slow cooker? Well, okay, you can’t
barbecue
them. But you can make them taste like good barbecue.

•
Beef ribs are far bigger—and meatier—than pork ribs. They’re the bones that lie underneath a standing rib roast. Despite this pedigree, they’re none too common in the barbecuing repertoire.

•
Consider making a double or triple batch of this smoky and aromatic rub. Store the extra in a sealed glass container in your spice drawer or rack. Use it as a rub the next time you grill steaks—or mix it right into ground beef as a hamburger spice.

1
Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Season the short ribs with the salt and pepper, then set a few of them in the skillet. Brown them on all sides, leaving them for 2 to 3 minutes per side to make sure you get a brown crust. Transfer them to the slow cooker and continue to brown more as needed.

2
Add the fennel, wine, orange juice, and rosemary to the slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or until the meat has pulled back from the bone and is tender when pierced with a fork. Use a spoon to skim any fat from the surface of the sauce before serving it on the side.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
Short ribs are one of the best cuts of beef for the slow cooker: you get the luscious texture of a fairly fatty but sweet cut of beef, combined with the earthier flavor of the bone penetrating the meat.

•
Braising meat or fish in a combination of red wine and orange juice is a technique that dates back to at least the seventeenth century. The finish this combo creates is sweet and mild, not acidic at all, and so a great match to the beef.

•
For any of these short rib recipes, you can substitute buffalo short ribs, although they may take up to 2 hours longer to get tender because of the additional collagen. However, you’ll be rewarded with a less sweet, more savory dish, better suited to a pile of mashed potatoes.

INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
Beef short ribs, sometimes called
thin ribs
, are cut from just behind the cow’s primal chuck (and even sometimes a bit into that chuck in modern butchering techniques). Thus, short ribs combine the best of the fatty chuck with the milder flavors of the loin. We work with three types of short ribs in this book: the so-called
English cut
, in which the short ribs are sliced 4 to 5 inches long with a mound of meat along one side;
boneless
short ribs, simply English-cut short ribs without bones, allowing for a much sweeter finish; and
flanken cut,
in which the ribs are sliced crosswise, resulting in a 6- to 9-inch strip of meat with small oval bones lying along its length.

1
Melt the butter in a large skillet set over medium heat. Add three or four short ribs to the skillet; brown them on all sides, working to get good color with plenty of patience and turning them only after a few minutes on each side, perhaps 12 minutes per batch. Use tongs to transfer them into the slow cooker when they’re ready, and continue browning more as necessary.

2
Whisk the marmalade, wine, basil, salt, and pepper in a big bowl until the marmalade has thinned out into a sauce. Pour this mixture over the short ribs in the cooker.

3
Cover and cook on low for 9 hours, or until the meat is fork-tender and has pulled back from the bones a bit. Transfer the short ribs to individual bowls; use a ladle or flatware spoon to skim any fat off the top of the sauce before serving.