beef | GF-Zing!

This is an easy way to cook a beef brisket – no fuss no muss, and no gluten.

For a 2 1/2-3 pound brisket of beef

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Quarter 2 peeled spanish onions and place them on the bottom of a dutch oven. Put the brisket on top of the onions, fat side up.

Sprinkle with 1 envelope of gluten-free onion soup mix *, then mix the following and pour on top:

1 cup gluten free tomato ketchup
1 cup water
1/4 cup brown sugar

Cover the dutch oven and bake for 3+ hours, until done. The meat should be very tender. You can then cool and chill the dish, and then remove the fat. After removing the accumulated fat, you can slice the meat, return it to the dish, heat and serve.

* To make a substitute for a package of onion soup mix, follow the copycat instructions available on the internet. For example, Food.com has 2 such recipes: http://www.food.com/recipe/copycat-liptons-onion-soup-mix-24952 and http://www.food.com/recipe/copycat-lipton-onion-soup-mix-153788. Make sure to verify that the beef bouillon you use in making the copycat version is gluten free.

Make sure all your ingredients are gluten free.

Meatball mixture:

1 cup of GF bread crumbs (make your old GF bread into crumbs and store it in ziplock bags in the freezer)
1 1/2 or 2 pounds ground beef (we grind steak to make ground beef), or ground turkey
2 eggs
1 medium onion finely chopped
1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley (about half a bunch)
1-2 teaspoons salt (depending on your taste)
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried summer savory (or oregano if you prefer that flavor)
a few drops of gluten free hot sauce
sugar, if needed
red currant jelly as needed

Frying oil:
1 Tablespoons butter or ghee
1-2 Tablespoons olive oil
a dried cayenne pepper

Sauce mixture:
Stir these three ingredients together in a glass measuring cup:

2 cups Chianti (red wine)
1/4 cup gluten free tomato paste (or more)
3 cups gluten free chicken broth or beef broth (home made)
More broth if needed

Make sure to use a red wine that is really drinkable – don’t use a red wine that you think is too sour or the sauce will be sour.

Put all the meatball ingredients in a food processor and mix well, or chop everything finely and mix by hand. Most meatball recipes call for soaking bread crumbs in milk and then squeezing out the milk – that is not required. Just mix the gluten-free bread crumbs with the meat and onions etc. and then form the mixture in to large meatballs – larger than a whole walnut.

Heat the oil and butter or ghee with the cayenne pepper in a non-stick pan that can accomodate all the meatballs, and brown the meatballs in this oil. To the same pan that contains the meatballs, add the wine mixture and stir gently. Cook the meatballs in the wine sauce for about 15-20 minutes, stirring as necessary and adding more broth if the sauce becomes too thick. It is not necessary to cover the pan while cooking these meatballs. Taste the sauce for salt and pepper, and add more if you like. If the sauce requires a half teaspoon of sugar to improve the flavor, add the sugar at this point. You might also add, and this is a super addition, a couple of tablespoons of red currant jelly, whcih will melt into the sauce and give it something special. Remove the cayenne pepper before serving.

(If you have only a small frying pan, you will need to brown the meatballs in batches and then put them in a larger pan to make the sauce.)

The original recipe that this is based upon came from Bon Appetit magazine, February 2001. The original included flour, and required the meatballs to be baked and so on. This revision is gluten free.

Make sure all your ingredients are gluten free!

Baked Brisket – gluten free

Meatballs in Red Wine Sauce