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Food Thread: Brisket, Patty Melts, And Other Fine Foods

Pastrami is the quintessential Jewish deli meat, and when done well can be delicious. It can also be too lean, dried out, and very disappointing! Too many delis around here overcook the pastrami and dry it out, and even worse, buy into the hysterical diet insanity that fat is bad, and sell lean meat that is devoid of flavor.

Of course pastrami is nothing more than smoked and spiced corned beef, and corned beef is nothing more than salted brisket! And do we know where a lot of good brisket is made using a very different technique? Why yes...we do!

Texas!

But Unlike pastrami, Texas brisket is almost always smoked with a simple preparation of salt and black pepper. That is not a bad thing, and in fact, a good Texas smoked brisket is one of the glories of the food world.

So what happens when you combine the two? Magic. Magic is what happens!

A friend was kind enough to bring a brisket from a place in Austin for a small gathering. And when I say "a place in Austin," I mean a pizza joint. This is where the fabric of the universe is torn, and the strong forces start doing strange things!

This unassuming pizza place (called "Pieous") makes absolutely spectacular pastrami, that is really a blend of the best of Jewish deli pastrami and Texas brisket. I hesitate to describe it further because I have never had anything like it, and it is better than either of its progenitors! It has the smoke of Texas, the interesting spiciness of the deli, but it blends them perfectly into something unique.

It reminds me of a place in Northern Maryland...also a pizza joint...that makes the best crab cakes I have ever had. The pizza is crap, but damn, the crab is amazing.

Anyway, if Austin weren't terminally weird and leftist, this pastrami would be a damned good reason to move there!

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I live in New Jersey...the land of the diner. Well, to be accurate, the land of a certain kind of diner that does lots of things adequately, but very little is done well.

But there are other diners to be had, and one in particular has piqued my interest. It is the quintessential New England coffee shop/breakfast joint/lunch joint, and it does what it does with very little regard for anything other than good food and pleasant company. Everyone who works there is friendly in that particular New England way, but that friendliness is made easier by a kitchen that keeps it simple and tasty. Oh, the coffee is good and hot.

But the best part on my last visit was the waitress and her earrings!

Well, the patty melt was excellent too. And cooked to medium-rare, which shocked me!

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Ina Garten's Outrageous Brownies are as advertised. They are indeed outrageous, and in a good way! Absolutely delicious, and worth a try, especially if your dessert taste favors less sweet options. These are very chocolaty without being sweet. Fantastic, even though the recipe is a typical Garten one...a few too many steps and a few too many bowls!
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Thick cut fries twice-cooked in duck fat. It does not get better than that.

Duck fat adds a rich deliciousness that is absolutely a game-changer if you are a fry aficionado, and the thick cut gives enough surface area for the potato to soak up that flavor. Cooking them twice (the first cook is lower temp) is essential because of that thick cut, otherwise the outside would burn before the inside got cooked.

Yes, I ate that pastrami AND those fries on the same weekend. And yes, I need to go clothes shopping for some elastic-waisted pants.

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Peking Duck is a great dish, and can be had in the United States with a little luck that the Chinese joint that is making it has not succumbed to the all-too-common failing that Americans don't know good Chinese food, so just mail it in!

But that platter is from a restaurant in Hong Kong, and no, sadly I was not at the table! It sure does look good though, and the report is that it was delicious.

And stupidly expensive. Thank God for expense accounts!

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The garlic is doing well! For now. It was 42 degrees this morning, and I am unsure how well garlic will tolerate that. I know all of you are worried, but it is still tall and green and healthy! And if they survive the deer and squirrel apocalypse, and actually grow into something edible, I will be in garlic heaven! In case it doesn't, send all of your excellent home-grown garlic to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.

Rumor has it that the Bourbon Bubble is bursting. I have seen no evidence of decreasing prices, but maybe the bursting started somewhere else! I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.

The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty or fifty years, but it is worth it!