Moose - Great looking pastrami and I love the sandwiches! I checked out your earlier thread and then followed that to Thirdeye's blog about his pastrami recipe using purchased corn beef. Very interesting, but sadly, as I mentioned, zero corned beef available here. Probably some occasionally down in Manila, but that is a hit and miss situation at best and a 12 hour road trip back and forth.
Gnaws on Pigs - Wow, nice and I utterly love that bread you made your sandwich on. Those "pomme fritz" aka French Fries look darn good too.
Stl-Rich - Thanks for that link! I love the Serious Eats website and make a number of their recipes on a regular basis. And their recipe is for a dry cure using brisket. Which is the alley I want to wander down this time. Though as I read the many posts here and a few elsewhere, I see I need to consider at least a short brine time at some point in the future. I don't mind trying different approaches. But I only have one small "spare" refrigerator and I need to have space for curing bacon too, which is a family requirement. Still, SE's approach looks promising.
NickTheGreat - Great Nick there tiger! Okay, I used to kind of be put off by Alton Brown for some reason. Over the last few years, I have had to re-evaluate my impression of him. Dang, he's done good stuff on cold smoking and now corned beef. I want to try the corned beef too. I will put his recipe into my queue of things to try. Thanks very much for pointing his approach out!
IrondeQuer - You guys are killing me with the bread here! And the swiss cheese. Heh heh! I put that on a sandwich and my family will have cardiac arrest. Their tolerance to cheese is ... pretty limited, though my wife's tastebuds seem to be changing and now she asks for the sharp cheddar instead of the mild. Maybe there is hope! I'm pea green over your mini-wsm! I have a SJG bobbing across the ocean even now. Another month or so and I hope to be hunting parts for a mini myself!
colberto - way cool! I had run into your "The Pig Lebowski" post somehow using a search engine. Really nice description but you say 1 or 2 untrimmed briskets. How much would that be pound-wise? I don't have the turkey fryer, but I do have a big a** propane hob and a stock pot of substantial girth that will likely do the job. Though, I have to admit, I've been looking at Thirdeye's approach of using a pressure cooker too. We are at 5000 feet and use pressure cookers often.
The slicer ... we just got one! Sent over by a friend in the States, it is in the sub-$100 range and does a great job slicing up bacon. We love it and I can hardly wait to try it on pastrami and/or corned beef!
Bigdog - I am not sure what I will get when it comes to brisket! I have to find some to start with. I have asked for it twice now and got the traditional "Sorry, sir, out of stock" reply that is a common refrain in the Philippines. It can mean anything from "never heard of it" to "sold the last one 5 minutes ago". Luckily I have a brother-in-law that is an apprentice meat cutter moving back into my area. He will have the connections if I can't find it on my own!
so...
I went out last night and looked for brisket again - no joy! I spent my remaining "meat money" on some pork belly for bacon and a nice chunk of pork shoulder to turn into hot Italian sausage out of this weekend. Next week I will start the quest for pastrami in earnest!
From reading, I've decided to use Apple chips to do my initial smoking for the pastrami. I have cherry shreds too, but I will leave the hickory alone for this project.
Thank you all for your great ideas, links, and information. This is a wunnerful place indeed!
