Steve's Kidney-Punching Brisket

INGREDIENTS (our thanks to Steve Sokolov for this killer recipe, for being such a good egg, and for never pressing charges when I punch him in the kidneys):

1 7-lb very marbled brisket

2 giant sweet onions

2 habanero peppers

6-8 cloves of garlic

½ gallon mango juice

Salt and pepper to taste

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Ninkasi Total Domination IPA

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2) Generously salt and pepper your brisket. Sear it in a stove-top safe roasting pan on all sides, browning well. Remove from pan and set aside.

3) Chop onion into large slices and add to the roasting pan with diced habanero (be careful, gloves would be a good idea) and chopped garlic. Cook about 5 minutes until onions are sweated.

4) Add the brisket back to the pan and fill half way up with mango juice. Place uncovered into the oven. You should have plenty of juice to spare. Throughout the cooking, as liquid evaporates, continue to add more juice.

5) Cook until the meat easily pulls apart with a fork, about five hours, flipping the brisket occasionally in the liquid if you feel the need.

6) Open Ninkasi Total Domination.

7) Enjoy together.

THE BEER:

Ninkasi makes good brew, and we only get our hands on it when we're in the Northwest--this one is quite resinous, just the way we like our IPAs, and a little bit toasty, with clear copper-grapefruit consistency. Awesome with brisket, that's a fact.

THE ADVENTURE:

We were homebrewing when made this brisket! It's a great meal to stick in the oven for four or five hours without really thinking about it, when you've got some sort of massive project going on in the garage, like cleaning your motorcycle or building a shelf or putting the finishing touches on your taxidermied elk, or best of all, making some beer. We would obviously have loved to pair our own beer with this brisket, but...well, it hadn't actually brewed yet, of course.

Eric Braddock (Gabe's sister's husband and a fine upstanding young gentleman) makes some stellar homebrews with Jordan Lehner and other promiment guest stars, and on this occasion we decided on a rye malt IPA, to which--I know, I went a little crazy with this notion--we added caraway seeds along with the hops. It's gonna be awesome. Pictured are men brewing beer while drinking beer, the dried Amarillo and Centennial hops that went into the Rye-P-A, and Penelope Rose Braddock inside a mash ton--she's learning to homebrew and already makes some pretty canny suggestions from time to time.