Blister in the Sun

The other day, I made Mother of Ken's barbecued beef brisket along with an interesting new side dish that you will see later in this post.

First, the barbecue sauce. The ingredients are:

1/2 c. ketchup

1/2 c. apple cider or juice

1/4 c. cider vinegar

1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 1/2 tsp. chopped garlic

1/4 c. brown sugar

I just mix everything in a large measuring cup, starting with the ketchup:

Apple juice:

Cider vinegar:

Worcestershire sauce:



Brown sugar:


Garlic:

The next step is to heat some oil in a pan (in this case, my "roasterette"):

And then brown the brisket (seasoned with salt and pepper) in the oil:

Once the brisket is browned, I add one chopped yellow onion and pour the sauce over everything:

This should cook at 325 degrees for about 2 1/2 hours and about an hour before it is done, I add carrots (this is optional, but it is one of my favorite parts of the meal):

While the brisket finished cooking, I started working on one of the side dishes. I found a package of sunchokes at the grocery store last weekend and decided to try them. These are the chokes of the sunflower and they are supposed to be like a cross between a potato, a jicama, and an artichoke with a nutty flavor. You prepare them like you would a root vegetable--steam, boil, saute, roast, whatever you want.

This is what they look like:

I peeled a few and cut them into pieces of equal size:

I cooked mine in some olive oil with salt and pepper and they were tender in about 20 minutes.

In the meantime, the brisket was finished:

After taking the meat out to rest, I simmered the sauce until it thickened slightly:

(I also removed the carrots and some of the onions first, putting them in a separate bowl.)

My dinner: cinnamon applesauce, sunchokes with salt and pepper, barbecued beef brisket, and carrots and onions. This was really good and I'll be eating some version of this again tonight, probably with steamed sunchokes. The sunchokes were nutty and firm in texture and I definitely liked them. I still love potatoes more, but these are a nice change and it is always fun to try new things.