Dazed and confused? Not me. I’m just Lost in the Cheese Aisle.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

TAKING THE CURE



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?

3 comments:

Kevin Kim said...

They look amazing. I want to palpate and masticate. For now, all I do is salivate, micturate, cogitate, and bloviate.

Elisson said...

Afterwards, you can constipate.

LeeAnn said...

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.