Pastrami

Well, since I was stuck working today, I decided to run another cook, today it was a corned beef hitting the smoker.  This was a test run and worked out pretty nice.  A Harris Ranch Mild-cure corned beef, soaked for 2 days to remove some salt.  Then rubbed liberally with my Phu Quoc Pepper rub and smoked over apple at 225F for 5 hours.  Here is what that looked like when done.

Next, the hunk of meat was wrapped in foil, then a 1/2 cup of water was added.  One of the keys to pastrami, in my mind, is the steaming process.  I never knew this until I saw a show on New York delis, where they showed that all of them steam the pastrami for an hour prior to serving.  I have been doing this and the texture is perfect. Here is an awful picture of the sliced meat.  Not sure what happened to my focus.

And finally, a sandwich, with lettuce, sliced red onion and some mustard.  The mustard was made from the dregs of a honey mustard with a little extra kick provided by Lucky Dog Hot Sauce and some Colman's Dry Mustard added in. Dill relish was also involved. It was good, even if there was no rye in sight.

 

This was an excellent effort with the pastrami coming out with a much better overall flavor.  I need some rye bread and maybe some sauerkraut.