Pastrami

My Favourite Food <(^-^)>

Pastrami

 
Pastrami is a popular Jewish delicatessen meat usually made from beef, and sometimes from pork, mutton or turkey. The raw meat is brined, partially dried, seasoned with various herbs and spices, then smoked and steamed.



In the United States, although beef plate is the traditional cut of meat for making pastrami, it is now common to see it made from beef brisket, beef round, and turkey. Like corned beef, pastrami was originally created as a way to preserve meat before modern refrigeration.


Pastrami is a technology for preserving meat that our ancestors used before refrigerators. Cheese falls into the same category -- cheese is a non-refrigerated technology for storing milk. It turns out that pastrami and cheese both happen to taste good, so they are still very popular even though the preservation technology they each represent is no longer needed.

 

 pastrami spice rub

 
 Prior to refrigeration, killing a large animal like a cow or a pig presented a problem. Either you had to have a huge party so you could eat the whole thing at once, or you had to find a way to preserve it. About the only way to preserve meat prior to the 20th century was by salting. If you add enough salt to meat, you kill all the bacteria in the meat and can preserve it for a very long time.

 
There are two ways to get salt into meat. You can coat the outside of the meat with dry salt and let the salt diffuse into the meat over several weeks. This is called dry curing. Or, you can make a salty brine (salty enough for a potato to float in) and let the meat soak in it for several weeks. There's still some possibility of spoilage -- the thing you have to worry about is bacterial problems during the time it takes the salt to penetrate. The easiest solution to that problem is to do your salting in the winter so you can take advantage of nature's refrigerator for a few weeks.

 

 Seared pastrami steak

 
To make pastrami, you start by making corned beef. Corned beef is a beef brisket soaked in brine (with some sugar and spices). According to my researchs, corned beef "has nothing to do with corn but got its name...when a granular salt the size of a kernel of wheat -- corn to a Briton -- was used to process it." By smoking corned beef, you turn it into pastrami! Smoking adds flavor to the meat.




Traditional New York pastrami is made from the navel end of the brisket. It is cured in brine, coated with a mix of spices such as garlic, coriander, black pepper, paprika, cloves, allspice, and mustard seed, and then smoked. Finally, the meat is steamed until the connective tissues within the meat break down into gelatin.

 
 
In North America, pastrami is typically sliced and served hot on rye bread, a classic New York deli sandwich (pastrami on rye), sometimes accompanied by coleslaw and Russian dressing. Pastrami and coleslaw are also combined in a Rachel sandwich, a variation of the popular Reuben sandwich that traditionally uses corned beef and sauerkraut.

 
In Los Angeles, classic pastrami sandwiches usually use hot pastrami right out of the steamer, sliced and layered on double-baked Jewish-style rye bread. Typically, the meat is served sliced very thinly, with some of the brine wetting the meat; traditionally accompanied by yellow mustard and pickles. At fast food stands, pastrami is typically served hot on a French roll. Pastrami may also be used as a topping on hamburgers.

 
Greek immigrants to Salt Lake City in the early 1960s introduced a hamburger topped with pastrami and a special sauce. The pastrami burger has remained a staple of local burger chains in Utah.