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Recipe for truly succulent, traditional Jewish brisket?

roxie110 — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:01:41 -0800

How do you make truly tender, succulent Jewish-style brisket? I've had a craving for brisket-like-my-grandmother-used-to-make for about a year now. I finally got the meat and my mother's recipe and cooked it today. The taste is great and the thin end of the meat turned out close to what I was hoping for; the thick end is cooked through but not moist and falling apart like brisket in my world should be, and when I stick a fork in it gives a lot of resistance. I don't know if I over- or undercooked it. I should mention that my "dutch oven" (really a stockpot) was too narrow so I used a Calphalon deep covered 13" nonstick skillet instead--maybe a big mistake? I am such a brisket novice.

Below is a quick recap of how I cooked it. I've looked up a ton of recipes but each one is slightly different, and life's too short to try every one. My question is this: who has a foolproof (mostly) recipe for truly tender, traditional Jewish brisket!? And just as important, how do you know how long to cook it and when it's done? (Can you overcook a brisket, as long as there's still liquid in the pan?)

Recipe I used for half a first-cut brisket, about 3 pounds, fat trimmed:
Preheat oven to 350. Place thickly sliced onions, carrots, and a couple chopped garlic cloves in bottom of Dutch oven. Rub ketchup, ground pepper, paprika, and one envelope onion soup mix on all surfaces of brisket. Add liquid to 3/4 inches deep (I used 1.5 cans low-sodium beef broth; most of liquid was absorbed by the end of cooking). Place chunks of potato around meat. Cover tightly and roast for 2.5 hours. Baste two or three times during cooking. Remove from heat, cool meat, and slice across the grain.

Help! And thank you!

Spinning Forks - I want one of those

watercarrier — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:11:41 -0800

Where can I learn to make fork whirligigs? A long while back my friend bought a very cool fork spinner at a fair that was comprised of two forks - one for the base and one that spins on 1 prong balanced perfectly on the other fork's base. I've seen some photos here and there on line of similar pieces but never instructions on how to make one myself. Can you help me find how to make one of these whirligigs?

A "hairy" situation over pizza...

MaHaGoN — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:29:44 -0800

If a manager of a restaurant blatantly lies to you, what do you do? Should I continue eating at this local pizza place, or take my business elsewhere? The Background:

A few of my friends were eating at a local pizza place. They are regular patrons at this restaurant, often times eating there a few times a week. The pizza's good, it's close by, and it's been a favorite of ours for a while. That being said, the manager knows us, and even mentions when we haven't been in for an extended period of time.

The Problem:

Hair was floating in one of the sodas. It was obvious, and identified as none of my friends due to its length and color. So, my friend walks over to the manager and hands him the cup and tells him of the hair. The manager proceeds to dig into the cup with a fork, removing a chunk of ice which the hair was frozen partially inside. He claims it was just a "trick of the eye" and that there was no actual hair.

The Questions:

How should my friend have responded to finding this hair in his soda? Do we forgive the manager and continue eating at one of our favorite pizza places even though he lied to our faces, just to save the cost of a dirt cheap soda? Is there any reason why he wouldn't just say sorry and offer a new soda? Should we just forget it ever happened and continue eating there like it's fine, even though it bothers us?

For the record, there would be absolutely no problem had he just offered us a new soda. Mistakes happen, people are hairy, and a stray hair is understandable. It's the lying to our faces thats the problem.

OSX: Is there some way to rebuild/restore resource forks?

GS1977 — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:27:37 -0800

Is there a way to restore or rebuild resource forks for files/folders copied to a FAT32 hdd? Ok, so I'm troubleshooting an external hdd for a friend. She says she was copying stuff to it when her cat turned off the powerstrip it was plugged into. Eeep.

Anyway, now many of what I'm assuming used to be folders appear as Unix Executables under OS X. Many of these files are the same size (e.g. 1.25GB for the ones containing MP3s). The drive is FAT32, so I tried it under XP and the folders show up as empty. However, in OS X, I am unable to correct what I'm guessing are stripped-off resource forks.

Does anyone know of any utilities which might help me recover these files? Remember, it's FAT32 drive, so HFS-only utils do me no good.

Any help is much appreciated.

Is using a fork with sushi considered impolite?

birdlips — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 12:14:32 -0800

It is considered rude/wrong to ask for a fork with sushi or other Asian foods? Mostly I get a little embarrassed when I go to a nice sushi restaurant and someone in my company asks for a fork. I am wondering if it is an insult to the chief or restaurant owner to ask for a fork or if I am just looking too much into it? Would it be more polite to use fingers than to use a fork?

Cannondale Lefty Topping Out?

ciaron — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:12:54 -0800

How does one stop a Cannondale carbon lefty fork from "topping out"? Cannondale recommend resetting the needle bearings, but this has had no effect.