The brisket pizza was the third installation of the Fourth of July pizzas in Belinda Hulin's The Everything Pizza Cookbook. I had learned my lesson, with a previous brisket pizza recipe, that you cannot rush the brisket. I had thought about "cheating" and buying precooked brisket, but I really wanted to try to make it the right way. I started with a recipe from Food Network for Texas Oven-Roasted Beef Brisket Tuesday night. I thought if I got it done a couple of days early and found that it wasn't any good, I would still have time to go out and buy the already-cooked version at Cub.
I started with a little less than a two-pound roast. This posed a little bit of a problem, since the recipe called for a four pound roast. I cut the seasonings in the rub in half, but I really wanted a moist and flavorful beef at the end of it all, so I kept the same amount of beef broth. I figured the additional liquid might facilitate a juicier end result. The Food Network recipe had the roast in the oven at 350º F for an hour, then covered at 300º F for three more hours. I had two problems with this. First, my roast was less than half of Paula Deen's, and second, if I have learned anything over the years, it's that a low, low roasting temperature is the best thing for a tough cut of meat. I had read in a Cook's Illustrated magazine that there are enzymes in the meat that tenderize it, but only at a temperature between 110º and 120º. The article went on to say that the longer you can keep the meat between those temperatures, the more tender it would be. I thought my little two-pounder was going to shoot past that sweet spot in no time at all in a 300º oven, especially after an hour stint at 350º.
I opted to cut the initial time at 350º to a half hour. I believe that the idea is to quickly cook the extreme outside of the meat to create a seal for the juices. I really think it should be a higher temperature, but I had some confidence that Paula knew what she was talking about and 350º might just do the trick. Then, I also decided to lower the second temperature to 250º. Jeff has had great success cooking prime rib at a really low temperature (200º or less), but I didn't want to have to stay up until midnight waiting for the roast to cook, either. I did figure, though, that at this lower temperature, I was probably still going to need to keep the meat in the oven for the full three hours to get it done.
After the three hours, I let it cool completely, then dared to try and "pull" it or shred it with a fork. To my disappointment, it wasn't falling apart. Jeff sliced some off and made a sandwich out of it. He said it had great flavor, but agreed that it was still a little tough.
I put it back in the oven Wednesday night at 225º for another hour. That seemed to do the trick. It wasn't quite as juicy as I had hoped, but it was very tender and flavorful. Was it too much broth? Was it the cooling and recooking? Was the first cooking temperature just too high? I will have to try a brisket for the sake of brisket another time, but that will have to be an entirely different blog entry. Tender and slightly dry I can live with when I am placing it on top of a bed of barbecue sauce and smothering it with cheese.
Adapted from The Everything Pizza Cookbook by Belinda Hulin
Crust:
1/2 cup water
1-1/4 teaspoons yeast
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1-1/4 cup bread flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
Sauce:
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 ounces minced onion
2 ounces minced green pepper
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 ounce lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
3 tablespoon brown sugar
1 ounce bacon
3/4 cup ketchup
dash Tabasco sauce
Pizza:
Crust (see above)
Sauce (see above)
10 ounces shredded beef brisket
2 ounces Provolone cheese2 ounces sharp cheddar cheese
4 ounces mozzarella cheese
Make the crust: Combine the yeast, water, and sugar in a bowl and set aside for at least five minutes. Stir the salt and flour together in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the yeast mixture and the olive oil and stir on a low speed until the mixture forms a ball around the hook. Continue mixing a little longer until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. Let rest for an hour in a greased bowl in a warm, dry place.
Make the sauce: In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, combine oil, onion, green pepper, and garlic. Sauté for a few minutes until the vegetables start to soften. Put vegetables and remaining ingredients into a blender and purée until smooth or use an immersion blender inside the saucepan and blend until smooth. Pour sauce back into the saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about twenty minutes or until thickened.
Assemble the pizza: Preheat the oven to 450º F with a pizza stone inside, if using. Roll or stretch the dough out into a 15 inch circle on a cornmeal dusted pizza peel or board. Spread the barbecue sauce from the center of the circle almost to the edges. Arrange the shredded brisket over the sauce. Sprinkle the cheeses over the brisket. Slide the pizza onto the preheated pizza stone or onto a pizza pan and into the oven. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the crust is lightly browned and the cheese is melted.
While my brisket was re-cooking, I started in on my barbecue sauce. Last time I had made this sauce, I poured everything into my Vita Mix after sautéing, but I was looking at all of the dishes I had already created making the rub for the brisket, cooking it twice, cutting vegetables for the sauce, etc., etc., and I really didn't want to have one extra thing to clean. I broke out my immersion blender I had gotten as a birthday present a while back. It did a lovely job inside my little sauce pan.
I am not sure that it actually saved me any washing time, because now I had to wash the immersion blender rather than the Vita Mix, but I can put those parts into the dishwasher with everything else. Also, I wasn't wandering around my kitchen with a hot pan and then back around to the stove with a hot Vita Mix bowl. As long as I kept the immersion blender immersed, it seemed like it was less mess, less chance for spilling. Or at least that it what I am going to tell myself to make me feel better about neglecting the Vita Mix.
I had also made both the dough for the brisket pizza and the dough for the Pesto pizza while I waited for the brisket to tender up. Once the doughs were combined, I threw them in the freezer for a nap. Thursday morning I pulled them out again and left them on the counter to thaw and rise while I was at work (haven't been able to say that for a while....).
Thursday after work, I was ready for assembly. I rolled out the dough for the brisket pizza and slathered on the sauce. It looked like the perfect amount of sauce - not so much that you wouldn't be able to detect the myriad of spices I patted the brisket with, but enough to cover the fact that the brisket had lost a little juice in its journey.
I was too impatient to actually shred the brisket, so I ended up slicing it. I tore some apart with my fingers, just to prove that it was "shredable".
Next came the massive amounts of cheese. The original recipe would have had me put the cheese under the brisket, but as I mentioned before I wanted the beef to come in contact with the sauce to give the illusion of juicy meat. Also, I like having cheese over toppings to secure them to the dough. Well, with this amount of cheese, the beef was definitely going to be secured!
With the brisket pizza ready to go, I was ready to work on the pesto.
Adapted from All the Best Pizzas by Joie Warner
Crust:
3/4 cup warm water
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1-3/4 cups bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pesto:
1/2 cup fresh basil (tightly packed)
1 large garlic clove
1 tablespoon pine nuts
1 ounce Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons olive oil
Pizza:
Crust (see above)
Pesto (see above)
1 tablespoon toasted pine nuts
1 ounce Parmesan cheese
Make the pesto: Place the basil, garlic, pine nuts, and Parmesan cheese in the bowl of a food processor or blender. With the blender running, pour in the 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a thin stream. Continue processing until well blended.
Assemble the pizza: Preheat the oven to 450º F with a pizza stone inside, if using. On a cornmeal dusted pizza peel or board, roll or stretch the dough out into a 14 inch circle. Spread the pesto over the dough, leaving a small border around the edge. Sprinkle the toasted pine nuts over the pesto. Distribute the Parmesan cheese over the pine nuts. Bake for 5 to ten minutes or until crust starts to brown.
The girls arrived just as I was spreading the pesto over the dough. The "rustic" looking dough that I could not make into a circle to save my life. It just added a look of authenticity to it, I think. I sprinkled my toasted pine nuts over the sauce, and I was just about ready.
1½ measures light rum
1½ measures Southern Comfort
½ measure Amaretto
½ measure freshly squeezed lime juice
Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously and pour into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a cherry.
This had good potential, and I was glad for a recipe that used up the Southern Comfort that has been hibernating in my basement for probably more than 15 years. This was a sweet drink - a little too sweet for me. Pam thought it perfect. For my second round, I cut back a little on both the Southern Comfort and the Amaretto and increased the rum, and that was almost perfect. It still left a slight sticky feeling on my tongue after I swallowed. It didn't matter. Mission accomplished - the SoCo was gone!
The pesto pizza didn't look a whole lot different fresh out of the oven than it did going into it - the crust was brown and everything was a little glisteny, but it was still basically the same.
It was light and crispy, slightly salty, and very garlicky. It was a great little appetizer, and everyone seemed to gobble it down. It definitely didn't fall into the outstanding category, but it was really good and really flavorful. If there had been any leftovers, it would have made a great lunch - even cold.
The brisket pizza was very good. It was messy and bold and extremely cheesy. Every mouthful was a pile of gooey goodness. It was spicy and tangy. It was sweet and earthy. It was a nice array of flavors working in harmony. Had it actually been made from leftover brisket, it would have been an easy pizza to make, too.
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