Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Homemade Pastrami-Awesome!

Well I was doing some corning for St. Patty's day and thought I would do an extra roast and then smoke it. Did a buffalo roast for St.Patty's day and it came out great (no pics) ... pretty standard recipe. I also did some fried cabbage, inspired by the recent post here and it was delicious, small bit of brown sugar and balsamic vinegar.

For the pastrami I used a venison bottom round roast. The crust is a mix of coriander, black pepper, fennel, and mustard seeds that toasted and then ground. Smoked for about 5 hours, started low and got hotter as time went on (no formal control over this with my crappy smoker set-up)... pulled it when we got to about 185. Damn is it good...

It looks wonderful! You need my address!

I need to try something like that!

Looks Great!! send some this way.

so first you did what, place it in a bag with some cure 1 and some other stuff, and let that sit in the fridge for how long?

And then you put the rub on and smoked it?

Correct?

cured for about 4 days, standard corning cure, like making a corned beef brisket. rinsed for 20 minutes or so. Toasted fennel, coriander, mustard, and pepper seeds then ground and coated roast. Smoked for about 5 hours. Let cool overnight.


Slice thin and then I steam it to warm it. Served on a rye or pumpernickel (or mixed) bread with a stone ground mustard... delicious, tender, spicy... melts in the mouth...

Here is a recipe I found, might serve as a starting point-

Looks like time for me to fire up the smokehouse.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/corned-venison/

Ingredients
2 cups water
6 tablespoons sugar-based curing mixture (such as Morton� Tender Quick�)
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 1/2 teaspoons pickling spice
1 tablespoon garlic powder
6 cups cold water 5 pounds boneless shoulder venison roast

Directions
Bring 2 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan over high heat.
Stir in the curing mixture, brown sugar, pickling spice, and garlic powder; stir until dissolved then remove from the heat. Pour 6 cups of cold water into a 2-gallon container, and stir in the spice mixture.
Place the boneless venison into the brine, cover and refrigerate.

Leave the venison in the refrigerator to brine for 5 days, turning the meat over every day.

(Edit to add from lovemy99's comments below, skip this and proceed to smoking) To cook, rinse the meat well, place into a large pot, and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 4 hours. Remove the venison from the pot, and allow to rest for 30 minutes before slicing.

a few pointers... if the roast is really thick, I would inject some of the brine into the center. (the large buffalo roast that we also brined was in for 4.5 days and when I cooked it, the very center was gray/brown not pink) Also, I used a 5 gallon bucket and do more than one at a time generally but you have to have room in your fridge for it...you can freeze them post brine and pull out as needed down the road for quick corned venison. I also use a plate with a weight on it and don't turn my roasts every day, no need.

Obviously if you are going to make pastrami, you skip the last set of directions that Cheesy posted and instead you season and smoke.

Looks damn good I'll be down in about 6 hr's.

I am dying to try to make pastrami from some venison. I have a "pastrami" kit but am wondering how much your roast tasted like venison. I'm hoping the gamey venison taste will be hardly noticeable. I'm thinking about doing some hindquarter roasts or some backstraps. How much like "venison" did it taste vs traditional pastrami???

if I did not tell you it was venison, you would not know.

Thanks, that's all the confidence I needed to proceed. Thanks for posting this thread

Sorry I just don't get this. Venison is a treat that if treated properly is not gamey and the flavor should be enjoyed. Why make it taste like something else. You can buy beef any day of the week and make pastrami. Never understand using venison for a processed product, like pastrami hotdogs salami etc., that tastes the same no matter what meat you use. Not to say the end result is not good. Just think it is great injustice to such a perfect meat as venison.

Some people will even get on here and tell you they like to eat a steak rare or medium rare. Now that is an injustice to a good steak.

too each his own. I myself am going to try making some pastrami!

Go put some A1 on a piece of shoe leather.

If you really want bad, there are others out there that admit to using margarine.

Well I don't find much vension to taste gamey, period. Like you said, you treat it correctly, i.e. cool it down quickly, keep it clean, age it, etc it does not tend to have a gamey flavor. I also don't think that pastrami taste like beef, it tasted like smoked corned meat.

As for making processed meat out of vension (or other wild meat), to each there own. We rarely if ever have any store bought meat in our house with the exception of chicken and fish. My freezers are full of almost nothing but venison, willd pork, free range buffalo, quail, pheasant, squirrel,etc. We like to mix it up so we make things like brats, italian sausage, summer sausage, etc etc etc. It is not the only way we use venison as we regularly have steaks and roast that are not highly processed or seasoned but I do not want to eat just that all of the time. We happen to enjoy it all.

The other benefit some might say is that its all natural, no hormones, low natural fat, etc. So even if its processed with seasoning, that benefit remains assuming you don't mix in a lot of store bought fat.

oh, and well done steaks are gross...

You got that right!