When people used to speak of “taking the cure,” they’d be talking about visiting the spa in order to enjoy the hot mineral waters. But not me.
I take the cure and rub it all over my meat.
No, I’m not trying to go all Nasty Grandpa on you, dear Esteemed Reader. I’m talking about charcuterie: the fine art of curing meat.
Yesterday I finished making a nice batch of pastrami. You take whatever meat product you’re using - usually a beef brisket - and apply a rub composed of curing salt (salt and sodium nitrite), black pepper, ground coriander, brown sugar, and garlic. After the meat has cured for a week, you rinse it off, soak it in water to remove excess salt, and then cover it in a mixture of black pepper, ground coriander, garlic, and powdered smoke. Bake it at 250°F over a pan of hot water until cooked through, then steam. Presto: hot pastrami!
The amazing peppery, garlicky fragrance that wafts through the house? That’s just a bonus. (The Glade and Air Wick folks can eat their hearts out.)
Pastrami... fresh out of the oven.
You wanna kick it up a notch? Simple: make it out of duck breast instead of beef brisket.
Ohhhh, yeah.
Update: Duck pastrami and scrambled eggs. Need I say more?
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3 comments:
They look amazing. I want to palpate and masticate. For now, all I do is salivate, micturate, cogitate, and bloviate.
Afterwards, you can constipate.
I have never had a single bite of duck, a fact I deeply regret. However, I've spent way too much time at park ponds feeding the feathered devils and when you run out of bread, they get a bite of you. Luckily it was from a place I won't miss it.
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