Hank Shaw is one of my culinary inspirations. He writes straight forward, easy to follow recipes that are delicious, and push the bounds of what you might think is possible with wild game. Recently I followed his instructions for fixing goose pastrami. I’m not a huge pastrami lover, nor have I ever tried making my own sandwich meat, but let me tell you, this recipe is going into my regular fall rotation, and I’ll be chasing extra geese when I’m out in the fields next season.
Here is the link to Shaw’s goose pastrami. This post will be about what I did with it once the pastrami was cooled and had sat in my fridge for a day. The night I smoked it my girlfriend and I chowed down on thin slices of pastrami, sharp white cheddar cheese and crackers. That would have been enough for us to make this again, but we found some even more delicious ways to enjoy it!
Ever had a reuben sandwich made with fresh pastrami? Holy crap is it good! Here is what you need to fix up this delicious dish —
– rye bread
– Swiss cheese
– Russian dressing
– sauerkraut
– pastrami
Lay out your two slices of rye, I prefer marble rye, but it doesn’t matter! Spread your bottom with a healthy amount of Russian dressing. You can also substitute Thousand Island dressing here, but it won’t be an authentic Reuben, and in my opinion, it also won’t taste as good!
Layer very thinly sliced goose breast pastrami over the dressing. I go for two layers of slices. You wan’t enough meat for the pastrami to be the dominant flavor, but not so much that you feel like all your eating is a pile of meat.
Follow the pastrami with a hefty amount of sauerkraut. Hopefully you’ve made your own and know about the joys of fermenting your own foods, but if you’re not as annoyingly hipstery as I am, feel free to use store bought.
You should be warming up a frying pan at this point. Finish the sandwich’s layers off by topping it with two thick slices of Swiss cheese, and the final piece of rye.
You’ll want to get your frying pan to medium low heat. Too hot and you’ll burn the outside without melting the middle. Once the pan has some heat to it, toss a thick slice of butter into your pan and flip the sandwich in cheese side down. Cover the pan with a top to really get the cheese melted. Keep an eye on your reuben while its frying, you want to make sure you’re not burning the bread.
Remove from pan after about 5 minutes, depending on your heat, and add more butter into the pan. Return sandwich to brown the otherside. Once its finished frying, try to get it to a plate and sit down at the table before destroying this delicious masterpiece!
But wait!!! We’re not done! In the Schneeman household, we managed to find another incredible way to crush this delicious goose pastrami! Pastrami hash and eggs! HOOOO MAMA, hold onto your shorts!
This one is an easy one! And so worth it. We’re fixing this up for two people, so feel free to increase your amounts to accommodate a larger group at your breakfast table, you only need a couple of ingredients —
– three to four medium sized red potatoes (we’re going for about a 50-50 mix of potato and goose)
– three cloves garlic
– one half of one goose breast prepared pastrami style
– two eggs
– bacon fat
– salt, pepper, cayenne, paprika, thyme, oregano
The key to this once is a pretty good mince of the potato, garlic and goose. You’re going for a nice even consistency, and its up to you how fine you want that to be, but I am always aiming for corned beef hash style. Mince all three ingredients and put them in a bowl.
Season with the above mentioned seasonings, going pretty light on both the oregano and thyme, you only need a little for their flavor to really kick up the dish. Cayenne is obviously optional, but not really! We all need a little more spice in our lives.
Get a pan going nice and hot, I’d say about medium to medium high heat. If you’re as big of a bacon lover as I am, you should have a jar of strained bacon grease lying around in your fridge, its delicious to use for dishes like this! But you can substitute olive oil here, or really whatever fat you’d like to use.
Once your fat is sizzling hot, and there is a fine layer coating your entire pan, dump your bowl into the mix. We’re trying to get a good crisp on the entire batch of hash. I stir aggressively every couple of minutes, scrapping browning bits off the bottom of the pan as I go.
While you’re hash is browning, figure out your eggs. I poached them, which is an excellent way to serve this dish, but you can do your eggs however you like, one for each plate. I suggest keeping the yolks as runny as possible, it acts like a sauce for the hash, and really brings the entire dish together.
Plate your hash in a bowl, with a soft egg on top, and try not to let your head explode when you taste this delicious breakfast. You’ll be planning your next goose pastrami making day before you’re done with your bowl!
Into the Northwoods 