#43 - Make Pastrami from Scratch

I took minor liberties with this one.  Having on occasion made corned beef briskets (from our CSA green-fed beef) and reasoning that pastrami was pretty similar, I opted for Turkey Pastrami. The turkey variety is arguably healthier and significantly less expensive than beef, not that that necessarily factored into my decision. 

Using a recipe by Guy Fieri, I started it in time to be ready for the smoker on the Independence Day holiday.  Brined the turkey breast in the fridge for a few days, then 24 hours in a dry rub, followed by several (4 or 5) hours in the smoker on the morning of the Fourth.

My only slight screw up was when taking it out of the smoker, I decided to crisp up the skin a bit on the gas grill.  There's a lot of fat in turkey skin, as it turns out, and it flares up pretty easily.  Consequently I ended up with a sort of Blackened Turkey Pastrami.  Reminded me of Moose Turd Pie (Good though!)

Blackened skin or no, it turned out pretty well.  Sampled it in a sandwich on rye, unadulterated but for a little classic yellow mustard.  Delicious!