Recipes From The Mile End Cookbook by Noah and Rae Bernamoff
Recipes From The Mile End Cookbook by Noah and Rae Bernamoff
Recipes From The Mile End Cookbook by Noah and Rae Bernamoff
| 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 | First Edition
introduction
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Introduction
Our story opens on the roof of a four-story walk-up
in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The characters are me, Rae, an
eighteen-inch Weber Bullet smoker, and many pounds of
expensive, beautifully marbled beef brisket. Oh, those
poor, sacrificial briskets. I had no idea what I was doing.
I didnt have the correct tools, I wasnt using the right
kind of wood, I didnt even have curing salt. I was
impatient, too: I didnt let the meat cure long enough, or
Id make the fire too hot, or Id get distracted and let
it go out. Most of those carbonized, oversalted briskets
went into the garbage. Rae suffered through the rest.
So began my quest to make smoked meat, the most
sacred of Montreal delicatessen foods. It started out
as homesickness, a longing for familiar flavors that New
Yorks pastrami and corned beef couldnt quite replicate,
but soon it became my holy grail. And, though I didnt
know it at the time, my attempts to make smoked meat
were merely the first leg of an all-consuming journey
into the world of do-it-yourself delicatessen and Jewish
home cooking. That journey culminated in Mile End,
the restaurant that Rae and I opened on Hoyt Street in
Brooklyn in January 2010, less than two years after
my first battles with brisket on our Park Slope rooftop.
To call it a whirlwind journey doesnt quite capture
the about-face I made in those two years. I was supposed
to be a lawyer. My cousins were doctors and lawyers,
and I knew I would make my Nana happy. Its what Id
come to New York City from Montreal to do. At first I
embraced the intense study, but I quickly discovered that
writing briefs and cloistering myself in the library at
Brooklyn Law School were not playing to my strengths.
I longed to work with my hands, to get out into the
city, to be a part of the life of Brooklyn. I pined for my
Montreal daysMcGill, playing bass in my old band, The
Lovely Feathers, and the overall energy of the city. I
missed eating the Wilensky Special, the gravy-drenched
poutine at Patati Patata, and the smoked meat sandwiches
and full-sour pickles at Schwartzs Deli. Law school was
a sensory wasteland for me. Unable to immerse myself in
it, I sought refuge in brisket and wood smoke.
Admittedly, I didnt have much to work with. I
trolled bookstores and the Web for smoked meat
recipes and came up empty-handed. I found excellent
recipes for making corned beef and plenty of effusive
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resourcefulness of Jewish cooks, who were doing noseto-tail cuisine centuries before it became a hip urban
trend. Nothing wasted, everything savored.
In my mind, schmaltz embodied the from-scratch
philosophy we had in mind when we were planning the
menu for our deli. It was, and still is, a sort of talisman
for me. But the truth is, schmaltz wasnt part of the
Mile End repertoire at first. I was thinking less about
old-fashioned Ashkenazi home cooking than I was about
Montreal delis and casse-croutes. Originally I envisioned
Mile End as little more than a poutine-and-smokedmeat joint that served wine and beer. Maybe wed serve
brunch too: Montreal-style bagels, say, with a schmear
and some lox. Basically a Montreal greatest-hits album.
Then my Nana Lee died a few months before we
planned to open. This woman was the glue that held
my family together. And the reason my family happily
allowed themselves to be glued was Nana Lees food.
Her food, and her huge Friday-night dinners, gave
structure and substance to our lives. My memories of
her meals, more than my memories of Schwartzs or any
other deli, were what really fueled my love of eating
and cooking. Maybe I overreacted, but when she died
I thought to myself: Is this the end? Will this food find
someplace to live on in our lives?
Suddenly everything shifted into focus. This
restaurant we were about to open had to be a Jewish
restaurant. There would be the deli classics, sure, and
maybe bagels with homemade lox, but thered be borscht
too. Thered be a Wilensky. Thered be smoked turkey.
Thered be mandelbrot and cheese bagelach and honey
cake. There would be schmaltz.
Of course, we did not achieve this right off the
bat. Before we could accomplish much of anything, we
had to solve a rather towering problem of supply and
demand. We got an inkling of the struggle ahead a couple
of months before we even opened, when an article
about us appeared in New York magazine. It was written
by the preeminent deli historianand now our good
friendDavid Sax, and it contained a huge, close-up
color photo of a smoked meat sandwich Id made. It was
a very good photograph. Local food blogs picked up the
story, and within days, people were showing up on
Hoyt Street clutching the article, peering in through the
introduction
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16
Noah Bernamoff
64
Quick
Cucumber
Vegetable
Pickling Brine Pickles
Noah: This is our mother brine. We use
breads
Matzo
Rae: Youd think more people would make their own matzo instead of
buying it in a boxthe recipe couldnt be simpler, and come on, its the
star of the Passover story. I use our homemade matzo instead of crackers
all the time for snacks and hors doeuvres. How many pieces of matzo
you get from this recipe will depend on how practiced you are at rolling
and trimming the dough.
Preheat the oven to 500F and place a pizza stone (ideally) or a 10-by-15-inch baking sheet on
the bottom rack.
In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients until they come together to form a dough.
If the dough is sticky, add a bit more flour.
Divide the dough into 8 pieces. Flatten a piece slightly and pass it repeatedly through a pasta
maker, reducing the thickness each time until you reach the minimum setting. (Or you can simply
roll the dough as thinly as possible with a rolling pin.) Repeat with the remaining dough pieces.
Trim the flattened dough pieces so that they will fit snugly onto the pizza stone or baking sheet.
Use a fork to prick holes in the surface of the dough. For salted matzo, brush or spray the dough
surface lightly with water and sprinkle with salt.
Carefully slide the pieces of dough onto the pizza stone or baking sheet. Bake until the surface
of the matzo is golden brown and bubbly, 30 seconds or so. Using tongs, carefully f lip the matzo
pieces and continue to bake until the other side is browned and lightly blistered. (Keep careful,
constant watch to keep the matzo from burning; the exact cooking time will vary from oven to
oven, and will get a little longer with each subsequent batch.)
Makes about 8 large sheets
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