Pastrami is either Jewish barbecue or the world’s best sandwich meat, depending on who you ask. Steven Raichlen goes for the first in Project Fire (the same book as my Peruvian chicken) and names Katz’s Delicatessen in New York as his favourite. His “Close to Katz’s Pastrami” was my recipe, and he starts with uncooked corned beef from a good butcher. I decided to corn my own. In an age of apps and screens, it all came out of a paper book. Yes, I own actual books.
The cure
Raichlen warns you. Corning your own beef is tricky, takes about a week, and if you get it wrong you throw the meat out. I went ahead anyway. The brisket went into a brine in a lidded box, packed in a cooler of ice (the same cooler trick I use for turkey, as in First American Thanksgiving), and the cooler lived outside the whole week. In frigid Northern Illinois before April, you can pretty much guarantee it was cold enough that it didn’t need the fridge.
Not a very appetising sight I know: grey beef sulking in a box of murky brine. But the brine is the colour of stewed tea (molasses actually), loaded with peppercorns, mustard and coriander seed, bay leaves and a lot of smashed garlic, and of course the requisite SALT and two black scoops keep the beef under. That’s what makes pastrami.
After a week it came out and went into cold water to soak the salinity away.
The rub
Raichlen’s rub is mostly coarse black pepper and coriander, with brown sugar, paprika and a few powders. Lay it on thick and press it in. Mine looked about right.
Then it went back into the cooler to wait for the fire.
The smoke
Snow the night before. Of course.
The beef went onto the Kamado, fat side up, with an iKamand controller minding the fire: 230°F against a 225°F target, two probes in the brisket reading 72°F and 59°F. Raichlen wants it to 203°F inside, which can take ten hours or more, and no foil wrap because that washes off the rub.
He suggests steaming it for tenderness. I skipped that. A Kamado holds heat, humidity and smoke like nothing else, so it steamed itself.
The result
Sliced across the grain the next morning: pink under a black pepper crust, which is the whole point.
The crusty ends got chopped up. Snacks.
On a roll with Branston pickle….because I’m British. It was meant for St Paddy’s Day. It missed by about a week.
I haven’t made it since, and I should. Here’s all I captured with gratuitous images of Tilly and Oskar out in the snow sniffing for meat at the end:
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