A dish sure to impress, warm, savory and sweet, all at once.

You need something nice enough to impress guests and delicious enough that they’ll remember it rather than be bored by more ‘traditional’ guest meals. The answer? Go old-school. Grab a hunk of beef and cook it with ginger, cider, and pears to give it a delicious, warm taste that they won’t forget, but that hasn't been done a million times over.

Ingredients:

3 lbs beef chuck roast, trimmed of excess fat

Kosher salt

Fresh ground black pepper

2 Tbsp neutral-tasting oil. Ex vegetable, canola, or grapeseed

5 yellow onions, thickly sliced

1 tsp dried thyme, crushed

2 tsp ground ginger

1 ½ Tbsp all-purpose flour

1 cup sparkling hard cider, pear, or apple (although pear is preferred)

½ cup low-sodium chicken broth

3 ripe (but still firm) Bosc, Bartlett, or Anjou pears

¾ tsp cider vinegar

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

Tools Needed:

Knife, cutting board, kitchen twine, Dutch oven, large bowl, slotted spoon, paring knife, peeling knife.

Start off by grabbing your pears. You’re going to peel the skin off, core them and then chop them into 1-inch pieces.

Next, grab your beef and set it on a cutting board. Dry it with paper towels and then tie it into a uniform shape with kitchen twine at 2-inch intervals. So your best bet is to start off by wrapping one long strand around the length of the brisket to get the ‘mid line’ and then going at 2-inch intervals up that, so you end up with something similar to a corset around your brisket. Now season liberally with salt and pepper.

Take your Dutch oven over to the stove, put it on medium-high heat, and warm 1 tbsp of your oil until it’s shimmering. Add the beef to the pot and cook until it’s deeply browned on the bottom. This should take 3-4 minutes, so set a timer and walk away. You don’t want to bother the meat during this process so that you get an even crust on that side. When the time is up, and it’s reached a deep brown, turn it and repeat this for the other three sides. Remove the brisket from the pot and set it aside in a bowl.

Keep the pot on medium-high and add the remaining oil, and warm until it’s shimmering. Add your onions and an additional 1 tsp of salt and cook, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot occasionally until your onions are softening and releasing liquid. (This should be roughly 4 minutes.) Turn the heat down to medium-low and keep cooking for an additional 15 minutes, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot; turn the heat down as needed so that your onions are simmering and not burning. Seriously, “burn” does not taste good in this recipe. Add the thyme, ginger, and flour and continue to cook, stirring until the onions are sticky and golden, roughly 5 minutes. Add your cider, broth, and ½ tsp salt. Stir and scrape the bottom of the pot to loosen and dissolve any browned bits.

While that’s going, open up your oven, and move a rack to the lower middle, then preheat the oven to 300*F.

Add the beef back into the pot, and make a slight ‘nest’ in the onions for it. The onions and aus-jus in progress should cover ¾ of the meat. Put the lid on the pot, place it into the oven and allow it to cook for 1 hour and 35 minutes. After that, you’ll add in the pears, stirring them very slightly into the onions. Return the pot to the oven and continue to cook covered until the beef is extremely tender. This should be roughly 2 hours and 15 minutes more.

Transfer your beef to a cutting board, and using a large slotted spoon, move the onions and pears onto a serving platter; cover loosely with foil to keep warm.

Pour the liquid from the Dutch oven into a measuring cup and let it rest for 10 minutes, or until all of the fat rises to the surface. Tilt the cup to the side and use a soup spoon to skim off the fat and dispose of it. (Or, if you’re like us, drizzle it over your dog’s food.) Add the vinegar and most of the parsley to the liquid and stir to combine. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper if needed.

Finally, cut the twine off of your brisket and cut it against the grain into ½ inch thick slices. Place the meat on the platter with the onions and pears, pour the juices over the meat and serve.

If you’re not sure what to have as a side dish, we’d have to suggest roasted sweet potatoes and a fresh loaf of crusty bread.

Now that you’ve tried it, what do you think? Delicious, right? Let us know over on our Facebook page. We’d love to hear from you.