Beef Tongstrami aka "Pastrami"

If you like fatty tasty Pastrami look no further than Beef Tongue. I've made Buffalo Tongue Pastrami a few times and it was the bomb so I thought I'd give Beef Tongue a go. Initial observations I would say the Beef Tongue is much larger and more dense. Take a look at the packages. The Buffalo Tongue weighed in at 2 lbs. The Beef Tongue weighed 6.76 lbs (although 2 in package)!!!

Take a look at these monsters. Very dense…. very thick. Unlike the Buffalo Tongues these babies are unyielding. If you look closely there's a lot of extra fat too. I will give it a little trim before the cure. Contrast these  Tongues with the Buffalo one and you can see the huge difference. 

The Buffalo Tongue was easy to work with. I unfolded the Tongue and measured it for fun. Pretty damn big. Not very thick at all. From the tip to the back of the Tongue it was fairly even. Very little fat too. No trimming necessary. The Buffalo Tongue measured in at about 14 inches where as the biggest beef one was only about 10 inches. 

Next step is pretty easy. Assemble all the Pastrami Cure ingredients. You can find my Rub and Cure Recipe HERE. I like to toast some of the ingredients first to bring out their natural oils. This is just optional. After you Toast them grind them through in a Spice mill and combine with the other ingredients. Keep Cure and Salt confined to their own bowls. 

Coat Tongues with Cure and Salt making sure to get into every nook and cranny. Next coat with the rest of the ingredients. 

Vacuum Seal and place in refrigerator for at least 21 days. Make sure toss & rotate it every day. This is an EQ cure so I wasn't concerned about over curing. These babies are thick so it might need to go longer than 21 days. We will see…..




I waited a full 22 days. They look cured to me so I proceeded to the next step. All rinsed off and dried. I placed a small fan in front of them for about 2 hours to ensure drying before placing in the Cold Smoker. Developing a nice pellilce will help the Tongue absorb the smoke. 

They will be cold smoke for about 10 hours. 

All Done!!! This is what 10 hours of Cold Smoke does to meat. All Vac sealed and ready for the SV. They will be SV at 142 ℉ for 48 hours. This is the perfect temp. After doing this several times I have finally dialed in the perfect T&T.

All Cooked and

they look beautiful. They need to cool a bit before they can be handled. You must peel off the taste buds while still somewhat hot. If you wait till they are cold you will destroy the meat. Ready set go… time to peel. 

All peeled. Again very easy to peel when hot. Don't even think about doing this when it's cold. After you peel them place get them cold by shocking. Place in refrigerator for at least 6 hours and preferably overnight. 

Coat with Rub….

Hot Smoke at

200℉-225℉ until internal temp of 142℉ is reached.

Make a Sandwich…..Review at bottom

Review- Delicious!!!! Although they came out perfect I prefer the Buffalo. Contrasting them is easy. The Beef Tongue had more intramuscular fat and had a softer chew to the Buffalo version. Both damn good but again I prefer the Buffalo. Textually from the tip to the back the Buffalo had a consistent  texture and mouth feel. 

TOP OF THE TONGUE

Rib-Eye-Cap-Quasi-Salumi

My torrid love affair with the Rib-Eye-Cap began at Costco. Up on till then I had very little experience with Rib-eye-caps. I think I had a couple over the years but never purchased one until now. In the NW they're not common. In my opinion the Rib-Eye-Caps are unequivocally the most tender most flavorful piece of meat on the animal. They encompass the tenderness of a fillet and the flavor of a rib-eye; the perfect package. An exquisite piece of meat. Dang my mouth is watering just talking about it... well typing anyway. 

This is the typical way Costco sells the Rib-Eye-Caps. They roll them up and make Pinwheels out of them. If you ask me the Pinwheel is a terrible way to prepare the caps. Yea, they look cool but that's about it. Cooking them shaped like this does not yield great results.

After a brief conversation with the meat manager at Costco he was willing to butcher me two of them. Here they are in all their glory. 

I love everything about the Rib-Eye-Cap and after eating them both rolled up and flat I decided to do something different. Since this meat; at least to me; is so amazing I thought how cool it would be to make a cured version similar to a pastrami. Anyhow that is what I am going to do. The recipe below is similar to my other whole muscle salumi's. The Cap will be cured and rolled tightly into a cylinder using Transglutminase. 

NOTES ON CURING.....

Combine the salt and Cure #1. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a separate bowl. If the coriander and white pepper are whole make sure to grind them using a spice mill. 

Sprinkle the salt and cure on the meat getting it into every nook and cranny. Now cover the meat with the remaining ingredients.

Vacuum seal in separate bags making sure to include all the spices that might have fallen off the meat. Turn every day for 12-14 days. 

It's been 13 days since I started this process and I believe the cap is cured. 

Cap was rinsed under cold water. The removal of the cure, herbs and spices is an important step. It's now ready for the next step. 

The Cap has a thick end and a thin end similar to a chicken breast. I inverted them on to each other creating an even thickness. Creating an even thickness makes it easier to roll into a cylinder. 

The trick here is to apply the Transglutaminase (meat gloo) in all the right places. You need apply the TG to every nook and cranny. And more specifically to all the places that will be glue together. Even the ends need to covered. I use a powdered sugar shaker to distribute the TG. 

All rolled up tight!!!! Get a good grip and use some wrist action. You need to get this very tight!!!

The secret of this TG project is the plastic wrap. I used 24 inch plastic wrap laid over a very large cutting board. I roll and roll until the cylinder is extremely tight. I never cut the plastic wrap until I have at least 12 revolutions. I twisted the ends extremely tight and tied off the ends with butchers twine. 

Double vacuumed sealed!!! The TG will take at least 24 hours for the protein to bond to each other. After the elapsed time I will Sous-Vide for 6 hours at 131 degrees. After the thermal bath the Cap will be Ice-Shocked and refrigerated until ready for the next step.

All SV and and ready for the next step. 

Pictures of ends. Notice how tight the ends are. Plastic wrap and strong hands is the only way to accomplish this. 
"Before cured foods are smoked, they should be allowed to air-dry long enough to form a tacky skin, known as a pellicle. The pellicle plays a key role in producing excellent smoked items. It acts as a kind of protective barrier for the food, and also plays an important role in capturing the smoke’s flavor and color."







Toss the Coriander, Pepper and Fennel in a spice grinder and give it a whirl. Combine all the ingredient in a bowl and set aside until ready to use. 

I sprayed a little oil spray on the Cap and coated it with the above rub. 

Cold Smoked with apple and cherry for about 3 hours and Hot smoked at about 200 degrees for about 2 hours. I wanted to set the bark. 

All done!!! A thing of beauty. The Cap will be refrigerated until I am ready to slice. 

All done. This was the bomb. The color, texture and taste were off the charts. I will not change a thing. I may use this recipe for a whole Rib-eye!!!

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