// you’re reading...

filed in Holiday Cheer

Desert Food

Antone DesaillyI’ll be posting 2 favorite recipes from my Seder this week, but first I wanted to highlight a moment from yesterday’s oral arguments at the Supreme Court. As these hearings were so monumental, I suggested to my Seder guests that we start the evening by watching Rachel Maddow’s analysis of the day at Court. She played these opening remarks by attorney Ted Olson, who was giving the Justices context about Proposition 8. (The bold emphasis is mine.)

Mr. Olson: “….It walls-off gays and lesbians from marriage, the most important relation in life, according to this Court, thus stigmatizing a class of Californians based upon their status and labeling their most cherished relationships as second-rate, different, unequal, and not okay.”

I looked around at everyone else in the room who all happened to be married (actually one was widowed). And for a brief moment, I felt like a second-class citizen.

Happily, let’s move on to food.    

MOROCCAN BRISKET from The Foods of Israel by Joan Nathan
Serves 10-12

1 5- to 6- pound brisket of beef
5 garlic cloves, peeled
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 large onions, diced (about 8 cups) 
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground white pepper
2 bay leaves
1 celery stalk, diced
3 large tomatoes, diced
1 cup water
1½ cups green Moroccan olives, pitted
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
3 preserved lemons, diced

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. With a knife, pierce the skin of the brisket in 5 places and insert the garlic cloves. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a heavy skillet or roasting pan; add the meat, sear on all sides, and remove.

3. Add 2 more tablespoons of the oil to the same pan and saute 3/4 of the diced onions (about 6 cups) until they are limp. Add the turmeric, ginger, white pepper, bay leaves, celery, one of the diced tomatoes, and water to the pan. Stir-fry a minute or two and cool.

4. Place the brisket in a baking pan and surround with the cooked vegetables. Roast, covered, in the oven for 3 hours or until a fork goes in and out of the meat easily. Remove, cool, and refrigerate, reserving the vegetables. You can prepare this a day ahead of time.

5. The tomato-onion sauce can be done a day in advance as well: heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in another frying pan; add the remaining onions and saute until clear. Then add the 2 remaining diced tomatoes and simmer, covered, for a few minutes. Set aside or refrigerate overnight or until ready to serve the meat.

6. Remove any fat that accumulated on the brisket as it cooled. Cut, against the grain, into slices about 1/4 inch thick. Return the slices to the baking pan, along with the reserved vegetables in which the meat was cooked in step 4.

7. When ready to serve, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and reheat the brisket for about a half hour.

8. Add to the tomato-onion sauce all but 2 tablespoons of the parsley or cilantro, the olives and preserved lemons, and heat in a small saucepan.

9. Remove the brisket and some of the vegetables to a serving platter and serve, covered with the tomato-onion sauce and garnished with the remaining parsley, cilantro, olives and lemon. Yield: 10 to 12 servings

ULTIMATE FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CAKE from Cooks Illustrated

8 
large eggs, cold
1
 pound bittersweet chocolate or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/2
pound unsalted butter (2 sticks), cut into 1/2-inch chunks
1/4
cup strong coffee or liqueur (optional)
Confectioners’ sugar or cocoa powder for decoration

1. Adjust oven rack to lower middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Line bottom of 8-inch springform pan with parchment and grease pan sides. Cover pan underneath and along sides with sheet of heavy-duty foil and set in large roasting pan. Bring kettle of water to boil.

2. Beat eggs with hand-held mixer at high speed until volume doubles to approximately 1 quart, about 5 minutes. Alternately, beat in bowl of electric mixer fitted with wire whip attachment at medium speed (speed 6 on a KitchenAid) to achieve same result, about 5 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, melt chocolate and butter (adding coffee or liqueur, if using) in large heat-proof bowl set over pan of almost simmering water, until smooth and very warm (about 115 degrees on an instant-read thermometer), stirring once or twice. (For the microwave, melt chocolate and butter together at 50 percent power until smooth and warm, 4 to 6 minutes, stirring once or twice.) Fold 1/3 of egg foam into chocolate mixture using large rubber spatula until only a few streaks of egg are visible; fold in half of remaining foam, then last of remaining foam, until mixture is totally homogenous.

4. Scrape batter into prepared springform pan and smooth surface with rubber spatula. Set roasting pan on oven rack and pour enough boiling water to come about halfway up side of springform pan. Bake until cake has risen slightly, edges are just beginning to set, a thin glazed crust (like a brownie) has formed on surface, and an instant read thermometer inserted halfway through center of cake registers 140 degrees, 22 to 25 minutes. Remove cake pan from water bath and set on wire rack; cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate overnight to mellow (can be covered and refrigerated for up to 4 days).

5. About 30 minutes before serving, remove springform pan sides, invert cake on sheet of waxed paper, peel off parchment pan liner, and turn cake right side up on serving platter. Sieve light sprinkling of Confectioners’ sugar or unsweetened cocoa powder over cake to decorate, if desired.

Artwork by Antone Desailly

Discussion

20 comments for “Desert Food”

  1. Jules says:

    Oh God Wendy, I totally understand. All the talk of how marriage is “the most special event” etc. does get to me. But as you know this is about so much more than the right to marry. I do find it infuriating that it’s reduced to marriage morality talk,
    On to food, the brisket sounds out of this world. I’ve been fortunate to have indulged the cake and it’s fantastic.
    Hope you had a lovely evening. You certainly treated your friends to special food.

    • wendy says:

      I’m sure the marriage equality lawyers had the best intentions when describing marriage as the most cherished relationship. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.

  2. Lew says:

    Hey Wendy: Thanks for the recipes! You certainly have lucky guests–not because they are married, but because they got to eat your meal!

    My Seder was spent at a middle eastern restaurant in Fairfield, CT with my 87 year old mom (who had a wonderful marriage with my dad, now deceased 19 years), my friend Sherri from HS (I had a mad crush on her back then), married and divorced 2X, and her friend Karen, never-married. The food was awesome and also the company–I felt part of a nice mix of America, widowed, divorced, never married, Jewish, gentile. Somehow I felt at home at the restaurant.

    • wendy says:

      I’ve wondered what it would be like to go to a restaurant for Seder. Sounds interesting and really fun.

  3. Lew says:

    I forgot to add that the restaurant had a special Passover menu–Matzo ball soup, kugel, veggie chopped liver (awesome), brisket (not as good as yours, I’m sure, but still very good). Only thing missing was charoses. We brought the Manischewitz so it was all good.

  4. Meghan says:

    My sister and I live about ten minutes apart from each other in the DC suburbs; my mom and other siblings are in New Jersey, where we grew up. My mom used to call my married-with-two-kids-and-a-dog sister to make plans to come visit. She wouldn’t call unmarried-no-kids me until the day before to say that she was coming. I don’t think it even occurred to her, but I’m pretty sure she felt like she had to work herself into my sister’s weekend and be sure not to disrupt anything they might have planned, whereas I was supposed to be able to just drop everything and be around for whatever they had already decided to do.

    Second class citizen, indeed.

  5. Meghan says:

    My sister and I live about ten minutes apart from each other in the DC suburbs; my mom and other siblings are in New Jersey, where we grew up. My mom used to call my married-with-two-kids-and-a-dog sister two weeks ahead to make plans to come visit. She wouldn’t call unmarried-no-kids me until the day before to say that she was coming. I don’t think it even occurred to her, but I’m pretty sure she felt like she had to work herself into my sister’s weekend and be sure not to disrupt anything they might have planned, whereas I was supposed to be able to just drop everything and be around for whatever they had already decided to do.

    Second class citizen, indeed.

  6. Mai says:

    Hugs to you, Wendy. I am all too familiar with that feeling of displacement. There are days I rage against feeling that I don’t matter just because I am not partnered. It helps to talk about it, to acknowledge it. So thanks for that yeah.

    • wendy says:

      I’m sure married people have many days of feeling displaced too. In all cases, it’s great to have community. And I thank you, Mai, for being part of mine.

  7. Len says:

    Heck, “second class” citizen might be a step or two up for me. Not just never married–never had a relationship. Plus, I’m that most freakish of freaks by our society’s standards–a 40+ virgin. Not by choice, mind you (consistent rejection by women and other life obstacles). To say that I feel out of place…wee bit of an understatement. Like Mai, I often feel that I don’t matter.

  8. Petra says:

    I once read that (and I’m paraphrasing here) that single gays should have the opportunity to be outcasts (as a commentary on the gay marriage debate). As much as I believe that gays and lesbians have the right to marry, I don’t get overly worked up about this issue anymore because it really underscores how we (society “we”, not readers of FPS “we”!) discriminate against uncoupled adults. It’s beyond me why the government has to be involved in the marriage-industrial complex anyway. Why not just view us all as individuals?

    Okay, rant off. Looks like I’ll have to make that brisket one of these days!

    • wendy says:

      FYI, I ended up cooking the brisket an extra half hour, because the meat wasn’t yet tender. (Maybe it’s just my oven.)

  9. Karen says:

    I’m fine with same-sex marriage. I live in NY, where it’s been legal for about two years now. While I hope in a general way that DOMA gets overturned, I must say that I find it difficult to get motivated about it, when I — as a straight, never-married middled aged woman — am not accorded any of the rights that my married friends and family have. When I die, all of my hard-earned savings will be subjected to estate tax because I don’t have a spouse to whom to bequeath them. Therefore, my sister, as beneficiary of my estate, will get about 50% less (I’m figuring in both federal and state estate taxes) than a surviving spouse. I could go on and on about other tax breaks, social security benefits, medical insurance issues, etc etc, but I’ll spare you.

    • wendy says:

      I hear what you’re saying, Karen. But the fight for same sex marriage is much bigger than the benefits part, even though that’s what they’re arguing in court. I’m all for it.

Leave a Reply