Cross Rib Roast - Pit Beef style

I happened upon a cross rib roast from Pacific Pastures, one of my preferred beef providers here in California.  The beef is grazed and finished on organic pastures and is an excellent source of a full spectrum of nutrients and with cuts like cross rib, the amount of unhealthy fats are reduced.

I decided it was a good plan to prepare this as a pit beef style roast (based upon recommendations from the BBQ Brethren's Smokejumper).  I had already rubbed the meat with a new rub product three days ago to give it time to work on the roast.  I also put 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce and 1 tablespoon of vinegar in the bag that I stored the meat in.  The roast was then put on the kettle at 250F for three hours until it reached 130F internal.  Here is it cooked and rested.

This was then sliced into very thin slices, the central gristle line, characteristic of this cut, was removed. Here are the slices before removal. See how rare the meat is, this is step one on the way to the bread.

Once cut and prepared for the next step, I heated the juice that came out of the roast when it was in the kettle.  I also added some water at the same time as I added the roast, this formed a light jus.  I added the drippings from the roast that came out while it rested to form a hot dipping liquid.  The thin sliced beef was dipped into the hot jus until just medium.  This resulted in a moist meat filling that filled the thin buns and made the toasted buns soft and juicy.

These are the sandwiches with a home made mustard/wasabi sauce to complement the beef.  I think people often associate mustard sauces with pork and sausage, but, it complements roasted beef wonderfully and with the kick of horseradish and wasabi lent by the wasabi powder, it really adds a zing to the sauce. Here is another shot.

Once the sandwich was closed down and squished a bit, the hot jus and the mustard sauce joined to make the bread and meat come together into an incredible whole.  Next time though, giardiniera will be added.