Put Down the Pizza: Why Pastrami is Our Ultimate Comfort Food
Every great dish is the product of obsession. Consider, for a moment, Erik Black. When he was working at fancy Los Angeles restaurants, he spent every weekend eating pastrami sandwiches at Langer’s. He liked the tradition of the 73-year-old restaurant, and he liked the sandwich. But being a chef, he began to wonder if he could do better. He set off on a quest.
He went east to New York’s Katz’s, where he was enchanted by the way pastrami was served. “I’ve spent hours,” he says, “watching YouTube videos of the Katz’s meat cutters making sandwiches. There is a music to it.”
He went north to Montreal to learn all he could about the city’s classic smoked meat, a steamed version of pastrami.
And then he went south. “A friend told me I needed to visit central Texas and experience old brick smokehouses where you have to step over the fire on your way in. The best brisket I had was at Mueller’s in Taylor, but the most impact came from Smitty’s in Lockhart.”
A post shared by UGLY DRUM | Pastrami • BBQ (@uglydrum) on Jul 6, 2020 at 1:51pm PDT
Inspired now, he came home, built a smoker out of an old oil drum—hence the name of his company, Ugly Drum—and set out to achieve pastrami perfection.
“What I make,” he admits, “isn’t really pastrami. Pastrami is made from the navel, a flatter much smaller cut than the brisket. But I wanted serious smoke, and the navel dries out and turns to shoe leather in a smoker. So, I pick out well-marbled prime briskets instead.”
The result is such a potent combination of texture and flavor that it’s almost impossible not to moan when you take your first bite. You are engulfed in an overwhelming rush of salt, spice, and sweetness as the tender meat evaporates in your mouth. It leaves behind a haunting, slightly fruity scent of cloves, mustard, celery, chilis, and pepper.
Black credits this to the quality of the beef, which he sources from a small farm just north of San Diego, but he’s being modest. He coddles his briskets, giving them a long slow bath in the spicy brine, flipping the meat each day. When they’ve finally absorbed the cure, he rubs each one with more spices and set them in a slow smoker over smoldering logs of pecan and oak.
Neither classic Jewish pastrami nor righteous Texas barbecue, this marriage of two traditions produces something remarkable.
Sliced and piled between slices of bread, it becomes so tender and soft it’s like eating pastrami pate. “The texture,” he admits, “was a bit of an accident. When I first made it, I thought I had overcooked the meat and made it too soft.” Then he realized that he was onto something.
Until recently you had to live in Los Angeles to benefit from Black’s obsession. But he’s now teamed up with Goldbelly, shipping his brisket all across the country. Put it into a slow oven for a few hours, slice it into delicious ribbons, and share it with lucky friends.
This story appears in the September 2020 issue of Town & Country. Subscribe Now
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