Frustrated Southerner here.....?

Question

What is pastrami?

You guys are so awesome... thanks for not making fun of me.... yet ;)!

I'm going to have to let the community decide on the best answer for this one. There are two that stand out most to me, but all are very good. Thanks everyone.

Answer 1

A highly seasoned smoked cut of beef, usually taken from the shoulder

Answer 2

Pastrami
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

PastramiPastrami is a popular deli meat made from (chiefly red) meat. The raw meat is salted (infused in a thick brine), then dried, seasoned with various herbs and spices (such as garlic, black pepper, marjoram, basil) and smoked. Aside from the pepper and smoking, it is similar in process and flavor to Corned beef. In the United Kingdom and the United States beef is used and the meat is boiled after the salting stage. Recently, turkey pastrami was produced in the United States.

The etymology is from Romanian pastramă, probably from the verb a păstra (to preserve, to keep), being brought to the English language via Yiddish. Early references spelled "pastrama", while its current form is associated with a Jewish store selling "pastrami" in New York City in 1887. It is likely that this spelling was introduced to sound related to the Italian salami. Another theory (as it is argued in this Ladino text [1]) asserts that it is a variant of Turkish pastirma, or basturma, which is a Middle Eastern dried meat, usually made with veal.

In the original Romanian tradition, sheep meat was used, but over time pork became the prevalent choice. Romanians distinguish between different kinds of pastrami, depending on the meat used. When not specified, pork is implied.

In the United States, however, beef pastrami is by far the most common form, made from the brisket.

It usually is served as a cold cut on a sandwich, but it can also be heated and served as a side dish. One such example is fried pastrami, with corn polenta and green onions.

"Traditional" New York pastrami was made from the navel end of the brisket, which contains considerably more fat than the chest area. It was typically served hot in a rye bread sandwich, often with cole slaw and Russian dressing. In recent years, this version of pastrami has become much harder to find.

Answer 3

Pastrami is a technique for preserving meat from eastern Europe. I once saw a food channel article about this, and they said that anything can be pastrami as long as it was given the pastrami treatment.

That aside, what we know as pastrami is beef preserved in this tradition, and I mean to tell you, it is yummy! The very best pastrami can be found in dirty little ethnic delis, where swarthy sweaty al-qaeda types are preparing the food. If they steam the meat, then toast it under a broiler, on the bread, with melted Swiss cheese on top, then smeared generously with brown deli mustard, you have got yourself a real treat!!

Served any other way, it's pretty ho-hum.

Answer 4

amen, sister.......tennessee girl here.....

If you want to get poetic about it, pastrami is a way of going back in time. So is cheese, for that matter. Pastrami is a technology for preserving meat that our ancestors used before refrigerators. Cheese falls into the same category -- cheese is a non-refrigerated technology for storing milk. It turns out that pastrami and cheese both happen to taste good, so they are still very popular even though the preservation technology they each represent is no longer needed.

Prior to refrigeration, killing a large animal like a cow or a pig presented a problem. Either you had to have a huge party so you could eat the whole thing at once, or you had to find a way to preserve it. About the only way to preserve meat prior to the 20th century was by salting. If you add enough salt to meat, you kill all the bacteria in the meat and can preserve it for a very long time.

There are two ways to get salt into meat. You can coat the outside of the meat with dry salt and let the salt diffuse into the meat over several weeks. This is called dry curing. Or, you can make a salty brine (salty enough for a potato to float in) and let the meat soak in it for several weeks. There's still some possibility of spoilage -- the thing you have to worry about is bacterial problems during the time it takes the salt to penetrate. The easiest solution to that problem is to do your salting in the winter so you can take advantage of nature's refrigerator for a few weeks.

To make pastrami, you start by making corned beef. Corned beef is a beef brisket soaked in brine (with some sugar and spices). According to "The Joy of Cooking," corned beef "has nothing to do with corn but got its name...when a granular salt the size of a kernel of wheat -- corn to a Briton -- was used to process it." By smoking corned beef, you turn it into pastrami! Smoking adds flavor to the meat.

Answer 5

Pastrami is a highly seasoned cut of smoked beef.

Answer 6

A highly seasoned smoked cut of beef, usually taken from the shoulder

Answer 7

Go to a diner and ask for a ruben sandwich made with pastrami. Yum yum.

Answer 8

Highly seasoned beef

Answer 9

Your so cute, here you go: Highly, spiced smoked beef, usually prepared from the shoulder cuts

Answer 10

one of the tastiest deli meats to make a sandwich,on rye,spicy mustard swiss cheese....now I am hungry