Pastrami Time

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Sunday Dinner – 29 July 2018

Reuben Sandwich

This week we made a Katz Deli style Pastrami.

Mrs. Noe has been encouraging me to clear out our chest freezer, so I thawed a corned beef brisket and mixed up some Pastrami rub.

  • 4 tablespoons black pepper.
  • 2 tablespoons coriander powder
  • 1 teaspoon mustard powder
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon paprika
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder
  • 2 teaspoons onion powder

Brisket Rubbed

Since this recipe requires smoking and steaming, I decided to do the barbecue portion of it on Saturday. I rubbed down the nearly four pound pre-brined brisket and set up the grill for a long cook.

Kettle Set Up

Here’s how the Weber Kettle is set up for water smoking. The drip pan is about 3/4ths full of water. There are ten unlit briquettes, four live coals and two chunks of wood (cherry, in this case) on each side of the pan. One bottom vent is full open. One is completely closed, and the other is about halfway open. The top vent is full open. This creates lots of smoke and keeps the temperature steady at about 225 °F.

After four hours of smoking, the internal temperature of the brisket registered 137 °F. I wrapped it in aluminum foil and put it in the refrigerator.

Thinking of sides for the meal, latkes were a natural, but since Claudia’s family is Lithuanian, and I already had a decent recipe, I decided to substitute Kugela. So I cooked 12 ounces of bacon in a foil pan on the Weber Genesis to have it ready. I also saved the grease.

Come Sunday Morning, I placed the brisket on a rack in our Nesco roaster with a couple of bottles of Schlitz in the bottom of the pan, and set it to 250 °F for steaming. The center temperature registered 207 °F in just a couple hours, so I turned the roaster down to keep the cut warm until time to serve.

With the brisket in the roaster, I got busy peeling 5 pounds of red potatoes. I grated those in batches in the food processor, putting them in a bowl of water to keep them from turning brown.

After that I sautéed some grated onions in a bit of the bacon fat, then put the potatoes in a colander and pressed out the water with a plate before adding them to a bowl with the onions and crumbled bacon. Then I beat 6 eggs, and added them to the bowl with 1 can of Milnot, and some salt and pepper. Since the mixture was pretty wet, I added about half a cup of farina and combined it all before pouring into a greased 9 by 13 casserole. I topped it all with the remaining bacon grease. It went into a 400 °F oven for 15 minutes, then I brought the temp down to 350 and baked for another 55 minutes.

Kugela

Once it was out of the oven, I sliced the Pastrami while Claudia mixed up a Wulff salad (with white wine vinegar in the dressing). She had also baked a cake earlier in the day and put together a nice trifle for dessert.

We made Reubens of the Pastrami, rye bread, sauerkraut, Swiss Cheese and Russian Dressing. Kugela topped with sour cream and Claudia’s delicious salad were the perfect accompaniment. We also opened a bottle of excellent Aussie wine (a Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon cuvée called “Road to Nowhere” from 2011).

Dinner Plated

The trifle was incredible. I shook up a round of Pink Squirrels for the ladies too. 🙂

The part of this meal that had me most nervous was the Kugela, since previous attempts at it had come out a little bland to my taste. Happy to have gotten it right this time.

Filed Under: Memorable Meals

Pulled Pork and Roastin’ Ears

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Sunday Dinner – 22 July 2018


Weber Kettle SmokeFor Sunday Dinner this week, we pulled a Boston Butt out of the deepfreeze and did a long cook.

It was a 5 1/4 pound pork shoulder that we’d gotten on sale some time when Ultra Foods was still in business here. I remembered to get it out of the freezer on Thursday evening so it would be thawed well enough to season on Saturday evening. Here’s my rub recipe.

  • 2 t Black Pepper
  • 2 t Mustard
  • 2 T Turbinado Sugar
  • 1 t Onion Powder
  • 1 t Garlic Powder
  • 1 t Paprika
  • 1 T Kosher Salt

I use this mainly for ribs and pulled pork, but it would also be fine for brisket or other cuts that get rubbed for smoking.

I also made a batch of Wolfe Pit Cole Slaw, and some Carolina Mustard BBQ Sauce Saturday Night. Here’s the recipe for that.

  • 1 C Yellow Mustard
  • 1/4 C Apple Cider Vinegar
  • 1/4 C Brown Sugar
  • 2 T Ketchup
  • 1 T Soy Sauce
  • 1 T Worcestershire
  • 1 T Crystal Sauce

Usually with the pulled pork I would cook up a pot of baked beans, and maybe serve some potato salad or macaroni salad alongside. But this week Aunt Pat brought us a baker’s dozen of fresh sweet corn from Hersher, so I saved back some ears for the meal. We generally cook our roastin’ ears on the grill nowadays, but I boiled these up in a big pot with a little salt, the old fashioned way, and they were delicious, smothered in butter. One of the cool things about living in Kankakee County is the incredibly sweet Hersher corn on the cob.

I was up shortly after 5:30 AM on Sunday to get the grill going. I set it up for the long cook as usual, with ten unlit briquettes on each side of a water pan, then adding four lit coals to each side, along with some wood chunks. Hickory and Apple are my choice most of the time for pork. The kettle was smoking steady at 225°F by twenty after six, and ready for the roast. I turned and mopped it every hour for the first four hours, using a spray bottle of coffee, cider vinegar and Maibock. After four hours, it was reading 135°F in the center, so I wrapped it in aluminum foil, moved all of the charcoal to one side of the grill, and added some additional briquettes to get the temperature up a bit. After another two hours, the roast was still only at 165 (and it had begun to rain pretty steadily outside) so I brought it in to finish in a 350°F oven. It took another hour-and-a-half to get up to around 190, which was my target temp for this cook. We let it rest for another half-an-hour before Claudia shredded it with the Kassa Claws.

The sweet corn, slaw and sandwich (on a Kaiser Roll topped with dill chips and Carolina Sauce) made for a pretty plate. Unfortunately, a problem between my camera and computer resulted in the loss of what would have been a nice photo to share. Rest assured that it was all plenty delicious. We also had a couple bags of chips, some Blues Hog Tennessee Red Sauce, and our old standby Sweet Baby Ray’s on hand at the table.

I’ve never been quite satisfied with the slaw recipe, so I think I might try a different one next time. Although this one came out better than previous attempts, it doesn’t match the sweet, creamy goodness of what I remember my mom making when I was a child. Otherwise, this meal was perfect. Wines were Cali Merlots from Intertwine and Karen Birmingham.

The older set played cribbage while Claudia and I took well-deserved, overdue short naps, then we enjoyed a nice banana cream pie that Aunt Pat brought for dessert.

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Chicago Deep Dish

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Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

It’s probably no secret that pizza is one of our family’s favorite foods. Ordering a pizza on Friday night was our routine for literally years when we were first married. Both of my sons worked for a time in our favorite pizza joint where we used to live. We still enjoy a good restaurant pie from time to time, whether thin and crackly crust, thick and chewy or Chicago style deep dish.

We’ve also always made our own pizzas at home, first using store-bought crusts, then eventually making them from scratch. Finding the dough recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day made a huge difference in the quality of our home-made pizzas.

In addition to baking pizza on the grill we love this version of deep dish, and have been making it for the better part of a decade now. It draws on a recipe from Lou Malati’s in Chicago.

I start by prepping a ball of one-quarter of the dough from a batch of the AB5 recipe linked above. My iron skillet gets a liberal spray of olive oil, and then a good dusting of corn meal before the dough is spread out in the bottom. I press it down and out until it comes up the side of the pan about a quarter to half an inch.

Then comes a layer of Provolone slices to cover the bottom. After that, the rest of the toppings go on in repeating layers – shredded spinach, sliced mushrooms, shredded Mozzarella, canned diced tomatoes with herbs and garlic. Then finally it gets topped with some grated Parm or Romano, and maybe a tiny grind of black pepper and some coarse salt. About 30 to 40 minutes in a 425 °F oven, and it’s ready.

We’ve added other ingredients in the past, black olives, sausage, pepperoni or what have you. But this simple combination of spinach, mushrooms, cheese and tomatoes is my favorite. The bright tartness of the tomatoes is a perfect counterpoint to the earthy, savory veggies and cheese. It’s hearty, satisfying and the first bite literally makes my mouth water.

With the dough made ahead of time, this meal is not terribly labor intensive either. I think it took me about fifteen minutes to put together, and then maybe another five to assemble green salads on the side while the pie was cooling after it came out of the oven. Quick and delicious is always welcome on a Friday evening after a long work week.

This is another dish that I’d encourage you to try. It could hardly be simpler to prepare, and I guarantee that it’ll hit the spot. If you’re hesitant to make your own dough from scratch, you shouldn’t be, but you could probably use a boxed dough mix, or even buy a ball or two from your favorite local pizzeria if you’re on good terms with them.

Buon appetito!

Filed Under: Memorable Meals, Quick Weeknight Meals Tagged With: , , , ,

Grilled Pizza

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Sunday Dinner – 15 July 2018

This week we made pizza for Sunday Dinner. We finally have the process pretty well down.

I made a quick, no cook sauce from two cans of tomato sauce, one can of tomato paste, some oregano, basil, garlic, sugar, paprika, salt and pepper. We followed our usual process otherwise, as described in these earlier posts.

Easy Foolproof Grilled Pizza

How to Make Pizza on the Grill

After I par cooked the crusts, Claudia topped one with three cheese blend, another with veggies and another with fresh basil and mozzarella. Then they went back out to the plancha on the Weber Genesis to finish.

The crust this time was the best yet – a perfect combination of crunchy on the outside with a little dense chew inside.

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Sunday Brunch

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8 July 2018

This week we enjoyed a lovely Sunday Brunch. Claudia made a ham and asparagus strata and bacon wrapped tots. Mom baked sourdough raisin sweet rolls and Aunt Pat brought a nice fresh berry salad.

Also, Mimosas!

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