Saturday, August 9, 2008

"I Find The Pastrami To Be The Most Sensual Of All The Salted Cured Meats"


At least according to Vivian, Geroge Constanza's short-lived girlfriend from the episode "The Blood" from the 9th season of Seinfeld. This is where George achieved the bedroom "Trifecta" of sex, television and food.


George: "I flew to close to the sun on wings of pastrami."

Jerry: "Yeah, that's what you did."


In my neverending quest to perfect my brisket -- which is a much less forgiving piece of meat than say a pork shoulder -- I came across some recipes for making pastrami on the Playing With Fire and Smoke blog.


I have yet to locate the necessary curing agent for starting from scratch so I picked up a couple of store-bought corned beef briskets and followed the instructions. One "dry" and one "wet."


Basically you need to soak the briskets in fresh water for 24-48 hours, changing the water as necessary to extract as much salt as you can from the corning process. Then apply the rub and let that "melt" in overnight, then cook the brisket(s) under a gentle smoke.



Due to some last-minute scheduling problems I ended up overcooking both briskets. They were by no means ruined or even bad but a bit overdone.

The "wet" style was very moist but crumbled when I tried to slice it. The "dry" sliced nicely but it was a tad too dry.




Anyway, they were good enough that I definately plan on doing this again!

3 comments:

Pastrami King said...

Hell ya man that looks good!
pastramiblog.blogspot.com!

Anonymous said...
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