Background

I like a good pastrami and swiss on rye. A burger joint called Central Standard opened up recently in Davenport and when I visited for the first time, I opted to try out their pastrami sandwich. It was a really good sandwich (I don’t have pictures of it though, as I only take photos of my own food creations).

I had tried to make corned beef around St. Patrick’s Day in 2009, but was unimpressed with the results. The texture was just not what I wanted, and I ended up giving away or throwing out a good portion of the brisket I had cooked. I wanted to try again, but instead of boiling the brined brisket, I wanted to bake it in the oven and get some smoky pastrami.

I therefore set out to try again at converting a brisket into a deliciously salty/smoky meat product that I could wrap in small pieces of bread and layer with a nice stone ground mustard.

When

I brined from May 6 – 16, 2016. I enjoyed my first pastrami on rye on May 16, 2016.

Recipes

For the brine, I opted for the process laid out by Alton Brown in this episode of good eats. Instead of boiling the meat and cooking it with cabbage and potatoes, I opted to cook the brisket in the oven using the process outlined here.

Result

After a ten day brine and three hours in the oven, I thought this turned out reasonably well. Will some nice rye bread and a generous amount of stone ground mustard, I got a number of fairly good sandwiches out of this brisket.

Was it worth it, though? I’m still not entirely sure. I bought a 5 lb flat cut of brisket from the local Fareway for $8 per pound, and after factoring in the cost of the bread, spices, and mustard, this entire endeavor ended up costing around $50. The sandwiches were tasty, but I’m also lazy and pretty cheap. The novelty of this might have worn off on me at this point. I’ll probably just get my pastrami fix from Central Standard from here on out.