Brad Makes Pastrami

[mischievous bass music]

[laughs] Oh my god. [high suspense music]

Hey guys, today on It's Alive

we're up here at my house in coastal Connecticut

and we're gonna be making a little pastrami,

beef pastrami.

We'll make a corned beef,

and then we'll rub it in a nice spice rub.

We'll smoke it, and then we'll finish it by steamin' it.

Let's get to it. [hand smacking]

[fast drum roll beating] [ducks quacking]

[lively upbeat music]

I believe it's like a Northeast,

you know, like a classic, New York, Jewish deli.

It's a smoked, pepper-crusted kind of

steamed, fatty, delicious, beef brisket.

You get a nice little piece of brisket.

And it weighs, this one weighs about 10 pounds,

and there's two sections to it.

You know, they call it, well,

it's the flat and the point, right?

I mean, right on the top you can even start to see

that natural line there, right?

That, where the fat is over it,

and there's two different muscle groups that kind of meet.

And what we're gonna try to do is

just separate that out into two pieces.

'Cause I asked a couple butcher buddies, and, you know,

watched a couple people on the YouTube do it as well,

and they went to just where it was about that, right?

And then they just, they cut it.

Now, you could just about anything, you know.

You don't have to go buyin' a whole brisket.

It's in investment.

I mean, this is no $25 piece of meat, obviously, right?

It's 10 pounds.

I think they cost about a hundred bucks.

That's a lot of fat.

You can leave it if you want. I like the trim it.

you know, the old rule thumbs about an eighth inch or so,

but you know, it's, it's not rocket surgery.

You can just do what makes you feel nice.

Leave a little bit of fat on here.

[quiet flesh sawing] [knife clacks]

All right, let me get a little thingy-ma-thing

to put all this fat in, all right?

Oh god, let me go get a thingy-ma-thing.

You stay right here, Kev, please.

All right. [pan loudly clunks]

Back to strami. [pan clanking]

I don't know if they teach this in pastrami college,

but what I like to do

is I like to just jab it up with a fork.

All right, I have a nice big one,

like a nice meat tender,

like a barbecue one, but I can't find it.

In my brain, it allows penetration,

allows some of that brine to get in there,

just helps get our corned process goin'.

So now that we've got our brisket all butchered up,

or, you know, to the best of our ability,

I'm gonna get some spices together,

and we're gonna get our brine. [engine revving]

All right here, and bu bu bu bu bu, celery seed.

Oh, well cinna-minna-minna-mon.

All right, so the next step is corning our brisket,

corning our beef.

Traditionally, it's done with a pink curing salt.

I'm gonna go way away from that.

Do a little bit of experiment with some other

natural ways to achieve some nitrates into your meat.

We're gonna use some celery and some sauerkraut juice,

along with some traditional spices.

And then we're gonna put that

in the fridge for about a week,

and then we're gonna let that

do its nice little corning, pickling, curing process.

So to make our brine,

I have six cups of raw sauerkraut juice, okay?

And then I got four cups of water, okay?

And then we're gonna make six cups of celery juice.

You got a nice little cold press store by your house?

'Cause they, a lot of them have celery.

It's actually very good for you in the juice form.

You can buy celery juice.

It's a hell of a lot easier than what we're gonna do.

I don't have a juicer, so I'm gonna chop some up,

put it in the tried and trusted Vitamix,

try to make us a moon shot, a little liquid.

We'll press it out, and [laughs] we'll see how that goes.

Ow! [pots clanging]

Quarter cup of, you can use light brown sugar,

or whatever kinda sugar you want.

I like to just use a turbinado sugar.

Quarter cup into the agua.

And we're gonna use 300 grams of salt.

Good old fashioned, you know, diamond kosher.

303, that's what's fine, [box clunks]

absolutely fine.

I'm gonna add that right to it.

This is just on a real low heat,

just kind of keep it warm,

and I just want to get that nice and dissolved.

Some people bring it to a boil, melt it fast,

and then you gotta cool it, yada, yada, yada.

I don't, I don't, I don't do that.

I don't care what anyone says.

It's like simple syrup. You don't have to heat it, okay?

You just don't.

It just kind of helps speed it up.

Like that's already just about dissolved.

[finger popping] [chimes shimmering]

Plenty reals today.

I got my oven at 350 degrees, Fahrenheit,

and we're just gonna add some spices, okay?

One teaspoon of of juniper berry

is what we're gonna start with.

So we'll add just one teaspoon of those.

Mustard seeds. [spoons clinking]

Love allspice.

So two tablespoons of dried coriander.

Pink, my favorite peppercorn.

And then a tablespoon of the workhorse,

the black peppercorn.

We got some black cardamom,

and I'm gonna throw two of those in there.

If you can find 'em, like sherberty and sweet.

I have a lot of spices on my finger, so it's kinda.

Chili de Arbol, or any dried chili for that matter,

'cause it's got that, like,

it's got a nice little heatness to it.

Bay leaves, I gotta go pick a couple.

[monkeys howling] [slow harp music]

Actually, we got some fresh bay, right?

I keep it right in my little room out there,

where we put our boots on.

And bay leaf, one of my favorite.

All right, I'll tell you all about it.

Underrated bay leaf.

I know I go on and on and on about it.

You payin' attention, Kev?

Pliable leaf. [added squeaking]

[lightly sniffing] [horse nickering]

Smells like, oh my gosh,

smells like bubble gum and orange sherbert,

and it's just... [loudly sniffing]

We're gonna add that right to the meat.

I'm not gonna, I don't need the toast those.

One cinnamon stick. [bottle clacks]

Mm, warm cinnamon, you know, boo, boo, boo, boom.

Let's get that in there.

Ginger, just give it a little smash.

[punches crashing]

Just open it up like that, beautiful.

Now we're cookin', baby.

Fennel seed, cumin, we're just gonna do a little,

just a little pinchy-poo of that.

And then celery seed.

A lot of celery in this recipe, but I can't resist.

I have to. I just put a little shaky dash in there.

And celery seed's awesome, man.

All right, that took a lot of time and thought process,

all right, so I don't wanna go burnin' these

and a lot of money too. [register bell dings]

So pot goes in the oven, 350, and that would just hang out.

We wait. I ain't doin' nothing.

[heavy rock music]

Hold on, let me check my spices.

Oh, you smell that?

Of course you can't, but it smells really nice.

[deeply inhales] [spices lightly scratching]

Oh yeah, get in there Kev.

But you can see the juniper berries

start to get a little oily?

That's what we're lookin' for.

This could go a little bit longer.

Oh, but that's nice.

I mean, it goes from just being this, like,

[beach music]

dried spice fragrance to, like,

all of a sudden this bursting, blooming, kind of,

very punch-you-in-the-face kind of fragrance,

which is, which is beautiful.

Raw sauerkraut juice,

and I'm gonna add that right into our,

this is just a really sugary, salty, really salty water.

And we're just gonna add that to that,

and that's gonna be our base.

Then we're gonna add our celery juice too, okay?

We can also add our spices.

All right, I'm gonna dump them right in,

right in boom. [spices scratching]

Last step in this crazy game we're calling corning

is we're gonna get, we're gonna do a little celery juice.

So let me chop up. [hands smacking]

I need six cups, so, oh I wish I had a juicer,

'cause this stuff's like all water, right?

Ooh, I love the yellow little hearts, right?

Put that in a little Bloody Mary.

Mm. [celery crunching]

Mm! [knife sharply whacking]

Okay, where we go? Where we go?

[knife sharply whacking]

Careful with your Vitamixes.

[machine rhythmically whirring]

All right, whoa, whoa.

Settle down. [machine evenly whirring]

[lid lightly clacks]

All right, here we go,

and we're strainin'.

[juice quietly tricking]

Like Ecto Slimer. [eerie organ music]

I don't know if we're gonna get six cups

Gonna do a little magic. [utensil scraping]

[sighs] I don't think I'm gonna do more of this.

Way under six cups of celery juice, okay?

And we have our brine.

This is gonna bring us to a total of a gallon of liquid,

and we're just gonna pour it right over the meat.

[brine pouring]

Oh my goodness. That looks good enough right there.

I almost don't even want to add the celery juice, my god.

So here's our wild card,

speakin' of wild. [juice trickling]

There we go, yeah. That looks great, right?

We got our brine set up. Our brisket's in there.

In substitution of the pink hearing salt

is the celery juice, which is high in sodium nitrate,

and then we have our culture,

which in this case is the sauerkraut juice.

And the end result of those two mingling for a week

is gonna leave us with a sodium nitrite,

which is what we're trying to to achieve

in the curing, corning process.

I think it went ba-ad.

No, I'm just kiddin'. [sheep ba-ing]

But look at that color. Isn't that wild?

Now over, in a few days, it'll, like everything,

especially greens, it'll, they'll oxidize,

and this liquid'll become more of a pink kind of brown, so,

but for the meantime, that looks great.

It's all jabbed up with the fork.

And I put this in the fridge for, you do a week,

and every day you flip it, and flip it.

Every day you flip it.

But I keep a little plastic over it,

just to limit any type of, you know, whatever.

[drum fill beating]

[lively funk music]

Follow me.

Love you, snowblower.

[Hallelujah Chorus music]

[door creaking]

Well, come on in buddy!

I went for it, bud, all right?

I don't care what anyone else says.

I went and built,

I built a walk-in refrigerator,

just for this. [people chattering]

But there we go. [pan heavily thuds]

Keep it in there for a week.

Turn it once a day. [hands slapping]

Keep it cold, cold, cold.

And we're makin' corn beef, all right?

End result's gonna be pastrami, hopefully.

[light jazz elevator music]

All right. [pan heavily thuds]

All right, so it's been about, it's been eight days,

and turning it every day.

And I'm not gonna lie,

sometimes I still went and jabbed it with the fork too.

And it's okay, if a couple will the spices stick to it.

I kind of like when it does,

especially like the mustard and the pepper corns.

But now we're just gonna pat it dry,

and then cover it with a spice rub

that I'll tell you all about.

Now, you can really see the grain of the meat

after it's been brined like that.

Really such a cool cut of meat, the brisket.

[meat lightly thuds] [lightly patting]

The brine, I mean, it's the curing factor of it

is what we're trying to achieve, right,

or at least an experimentation

of the traditional curing method.

A good test for me, I mean, like,

if you're familiar with corned beef,

is, right outta the brine, just

[deeply inhaling]

give it the old snifter,

and it should smell like a corned beef sandwich,

and we're there.

So what we have here, I got this little spice rub.

That's what we got goin' on in here.

In my little mortar and pestle,

[swift whooshing] [metal clinking]

I got another tablespoon of pink and black

that I'm just gonna crush up nice,

add right to that mixture.

Love of mortar and pestle.

Look at that. [metal clanking]

So we have a nice variety, some whole, some cracked.

I'll do a little bit more.

Add that right to this.

I'll give it a little [air whirling]

All right, here we go. Here we go.

All right.

All right, and if you want a little more, add a little more.

[funky rhythmic music] [pepper grinder grinding]

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

[lips popping] [high-tone music flares]

Watch your step, boys. we got some snow.

I did my best. I got this damn pea stone.

All right, so we got our smoker set to 225, all right?

Super smoke on the... [distorted voice growling]

So boom, there goes that first cut,

second cut, that big boy.

All right, I got this.

We're gonna put it into the thickest part,

the probe in there for the temperature internal.

we're gonna hit try to hit 150, 160, okay?

And at that point is where we would pull it,

and you can put it in the oven, wrap it in paper,

or you can wrap it in a steaming vessel,

and let that water get in there and just steam cook it

all the way to an internal temperature of 200,

206 degrees. [glissando ascending]

See you in a few hours.

Remember, don't go looking too much.

If you're lookin', it ain't cookin'.

[laughs] I love saying that.

[light jazz elevator music]

We're runnin' that 225, smoking temperature, all right?

And our probe,

which is the internal temperature of our brisket,

jabbed into the thickest spot, is registering 131.

I poked around with this, which is,

just, you know, another probe thermometer.

Just to see if I can find anything a little lower.

I hit 128.

All right, close the door, Brad.

But what we're looking for, bark's startin' to set up.

You see how this one's a little further?

It's starting to get a little saturated in the fat.

Oh, you close your eyes, you're gonna think you're a cat.

Someone make you a little sandwich on rye.

Get outta my deli! [laughs]

All right, we'll see you in a bit.

[ducks quacking] [rhythmic piano music]

[punch landing] [ducks and piano continue]

Kev look. I got the ducks eatin' our celery scraps,

All right?

Hey look. You guys, check this out.

You go right in the smoker. [laughs]

Oh guys, you passed your coop!

[laughs] Silly ducks.

Uh, what are we doin'? [toy squeaks]

Oh yeah, our brisket.

So we hit an internal temperature of 155,

and now we're gonna pull it, bring it inside.

We're gonna put it in my steam tray vessel,

where we're gonna put it in the oven,

let it steam for a couple hours,

'til we hit an internal temperature, 200, 205 degrees,

and then it's gonna be perfect.

It's gonna be pastrami and we're gonna make sandwiches,

and I'm gonna hug and kiss you all.

Oh, I forgot a tray. [kiss smooching]

[footfalls shuffling] [lid clicks]

Oh yeah, lookin' real good.

[burner blowing]

Jumbo fatties.

Let's go, whoo hoo hoo!

[echoing synth music] [Brad giggling]

So we got our pastrami.

We pulled it off the smoker.

Internal temperature hit about 155.

And now we're gonna put it into,

I have the oven preheated 300 degrees,

and let me show you my steaming apparatus.

Get outta here. [slide whistle slides]

So yeah, luckily I got this bad boy.

Yeah, baby.

So it's just like a, it's a hotel pan.

It's the same pan that I was brining,

that we corned the beef in, [foil crinkling]

and now it's converted into our pastrami steamer.

And luckily I just got this really nice little insert,

little steamer. [pan clanks]

All right, and it's not a super aggressive steam, you know.

It's just a nice carryover.

And what we're gonna do is,

you know we're gonna bring this meat.

I have a little probe thermometer, all right?

Goes inside the oven, little [Brad whistles]

you know, and I'm gonna put it right where,

you know, same situation that we were doin' outside.

I'm gonna monitor the internal temperature.

I set a timer to 205 degrees,

in case I, you know, go get distracted.

And now we're just gonna steam this.

Bring it through; carry it through.

Break down all those connective tissues.

Bring that internal temperature up past 165,

where those things start to break down

and really get tender.

Pull it. Let it rest for a half an hour.

Then we're gonna slice it up.

Get a little mustard, little rye bread.

Make you a little sandwich. [engine revving]

Stupid electric oven. [pan rattling]

And yeah, this comes out, all right?

Let's not be crazy.

All right, close that little mama.

Get a new towel. [sighs]

Loser! [laughs]

[light jazz elevator music]

Steam job.

All right, here we go, baby.

You ready, Kevo? [foil rattling]

Yeah, bud. Yeah, bud.

Ooh, butter!

Oh yeah. That's what we're talkin' about.

[utensil clanging]

Oh god. Oh god, Brad. [pan clanks]

Brad, what are you doing?

Now we had it rest for about 30 minutes.

Just gotta cut it up, and we're gonna taste it.

[lightly inhaling]

Oh, it smells so good.

So it was resting. We pulled it out.

It had an internal temperature, at the thickest point,

we hit 203 degrees, Fahrenheit.

Identify the grain. Looks like it's goin' that way.

[flesh quietly slicing]

You could see that what our brine did was go through it.

It looks nice and juicy.

Oh pink salt, this would be all,

like, glow in the dark red, and it's nice.

I do like it. It's a beautiful thing.

I grew up having, you know,

that kind of corned beef and pastrami,

but this was a nice experiment.

Oh my god. [snare drum rolling]

Delicious. [water trickling]

[heavy rhythmic music]

We made pastrami!

And we get all those picklings,

with the coriander, the mustard seed.

[lightly inhaling]

Oh its so good. It's one of my favorites.

Look at that. What a thing of beauty right there.

Tastes like corned beef

that's been smoked and peppered and spiced.

Go in with a friend. It's a nice project.

It's a lot of meat, and it's just delicious.

All right guys, that's pastrami.

We messed around. We ditched the pink salt.

We picked up a little celery juice

and some sauerkraut juice.

We smoked it. We steamed it,

brought it up to that 206 degrees internal temperature

to make it just super tender and juicy.

You know eat it in a couple days.

Then you can wrap it; pack it in the freezer.

Steam it to heat again,

and you're rockin' and rollin', man.

Pastrami, love it.

Can't go wrong. [hands smacking]

Bone apetite. [rhythm clicking]

Woo. [bass drum beating]

[relaxed celebration music]

30.

29.

I like my snow at crisp 27.

This is, oh, there it is.

Yeah, I knew it. I knew that was right there.

But you know, you want it to be around 31 for snowballs,

or for the proper snowman making, a packable snow.

I don't know if that's true, but it sounded right.

[light jazz elevator music]

[tone beeps]