Recently, I read that pastrami is just *smoked* corned beef that has been treated especially well. After St. Patty's, corned beef is nearly free, so I tried it out.
Here's the corned beef, straight out of the packaging. About 4 pounds, about four bucks.
I soaked it in fresh water for 24 hours to leach out some of the salt brine. During this time, I changed the water about five times.
I then gave it a rub of about 2/3 fresh *cracked* black pepper to 1/3 ground coriander. Here's what it looked like following the dry rub.
I let it sit in the rub for 48 full hours. Here it is going into the smoker after that.
Now it looks like this for eight hours.
When it reached 160 degrees, I double wrapped it in foil. I left it in the 225 degree smoker until there was an internal temperature of 195 degrees, at which time I removed it from the heat.
I left it wrapped in foil for 48 hours. This is what it looked like coming out of the foil.
Here it is, cold, split in half.
They say you're supposed to steam pastrami to an internal temperature of 200 degrees . I don't have a real steamer, so here's my McGyver steamer. I steamed one half of the meat.
When the meat was close to 200 degrees, I put grilled some sourdough in butter. I put mayo on one slice of bread, stone ground mustard on the other slice, and two slices of provolone on each slice of bread.
Here's the pastrami when steamed and sliced.
Here's the incredibly tender sandwich, with some deli pickles.
This was soooo good. Best sandwich I've ever had.
Have fun,
Jerry
