Meat, Meat, Meat!

I've decided this blog needs to be spiced up a bit with some photos.  So....

Here's a little appetizer I'm fixing for some before-dinner noshing:

Here's dinner:

And this is for breakfast the next morning: 

Ok, so I'm lying.  But if you click on the pictures, they will get bigger.  :) 

The first picture is of about 2.5 pounds of pork loin with a spice cure rubbed on.  The spice mixture contains a lot of pureed fresh sage for flavoring, which is why it's so green.  I'm going to leave the cure on for a couple days, then wash it off and confit the entire piece of loin in lard.  Mmmm.

The next picture is of a 5 pound beef brisket.  It was soaking in a brine cure until this morning, when I removed it and dried it off.  Then I toasted and ground some peppercorns and coriander seed, and smeared them all over the brisket.  It's now ready to be smoked, but I think I'm going to wait until Wednesday: it'll be colder outside then, so I'll be able to keep the smoke in my grill colder, and therefore get more smoke on the meat without really cooking it.  After smoking, the end product will be a honking big hunk of pastrami I can then roast.  Mmmm mmmm.

The third picture is another 2.5 pound or so piece of the same pork loin as the first picture.  It hasn't had anything done to it yet.  However, the pot of liquid with herbs in it is a brine cure for the loin.  Once the brine cools, I'll refrigerate it, and add the loin.  After a couple days, I'll pull the loin out of the brine, smoke it, and have what's known as Canadian bacon.  Mmmm mmmm mmmm!

Comments

[Maura]

Thanks for explaining Joe. I was a little worried, especially about that greens stuff.
mmmmm...pastrami

[Joe]

Maura, the cure on the loin for confit is salt, pink salt (curing salt #1), garlic, shallots, parsley, sage, pepper, and bay. You grind the whole mess up and smear it on the pork. To be honest, I didn't have any shallot or parsley; I added a little onion to make up for the shallot. This recipe comes from Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Bryan Polcyn.

I can hardly wait to smoke the pastrami. I'm gonna start tomorrow morning. I've got some big chunks of hickory I'm soaking, and a little bit of applewood chips.

[Celeste Copeland]

Geez - when are you opening your own deli? And bakery, and fabulous-mushroom-and-sausage-stuffing-ery, and.... *gargle*

[Rafael monzon]

Love your blog! Great work.

[Joe]

Celeste & Rafael: Thanks for the nice feedback!

[Joe]

BTW folks, the pastrami was fucking awesome. Next time I'm going to have to make like 15 pounds at once. :)

[Joe]

Celeste: WRT the mushroom and sausage stuffing, seek and ye shall find. :)

[Kerrie]

Hi Joe, I just found your blog when searching for recipes on smoked brisket and pastrami. After finding your site, I have been reading you like a novel almost non-stop for the best part of a day! Count me as a regular from now on, it's just great.
I fell in love with smoked meat (from Schwartz's) when I came over for a visit 3 years ago and haven't been able to find anything near as good in Australia. Would you be willing to share your recipe/method for your pastrami, please? There is not too much home smoking of food done over here, except for the hams around Christmastime in the Weber and a few enthusiasts, so it is not a method of cooking I am familiar with, as most of the smoked goods I have ever had were bought that way, but I'd love to try it. The picture of your pastrami is amazing!

[Joe]

Kerrie: Thanks! Most of the charcuterie-type work I've been doing lately has been straight out of Charcuterie, which is also listed in the group of books on the left. Can you order that in Australia?

[Kerrie]

Not sure, but I'll see what I can find. :)