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Pastrami Skirt Steak
Steve Harkavy and Sam Barbieri brought barbecue to the WOR studios last week, so Joan and I, starving broadcasters that we are, could have something to "taste" for our Weekend show.
Steve and Sam together are Fuhgeddaboutit, the New York City Barbecue Team. They go around the country competing with other barbecue fanatics (I should say cooks). The categories are too numerous to mention, but naturally include ribs, brisket, the best this and that, even "the whole hog," which is, indeed, simply the whole hog.
Joan and I loved the various Fuhgeddaboutit barbecue products, which did not include a whole hog but plenty of what else. Actually, I had eaten barbecue prepared by Harkavy before. He is a fellow Brooklynite and a devoted listener of Food Talk and I once went to his annual Sunday before Thanksgiving barbecue party. Actually, it isn't the barbecue I remember so vividly. He also served Turducken, a tour de force of forcemeat, so to speak. It's a Baroque Louisiana creation of a boned turkey stuffed with a boned duck, which in turn is stuffed with a boned chicken. Between and inside the birds, filling every crevice, is a bread, meat or poultry based dressing. As you can imagine, this is a project that requires a craftsman's skill, although down in Louisiana you can buy the whole thing at the butcher and take it home to stick in the oven.
But back to barbecue: You would have to go to a barbecue competition with the Fuhgeddaboutit team to taste all their products, with which they have won a half dozen medals in their mere year of competing. They make, beside ribs, chicken, and brisket, skirt steak cured like pastrami, and racks of lamb in the (more or less) style of Moroccan mishwi (roast lamb). Sam Barbieri serves the ribs and chicken in his two restaurants, Waterfront Ale House, on Second Ave. and 30th St. in Manhattan, and on Atlantic Ave. and Clinton St. in Brooklyn (that's Brooklyn Heights, on the Middle Eastern section of the avenue). Sometimes he offers his other barbecue specialties as daily specials.
Sam was kind and generous enough to provide me with some recipes. Today I offer his skirt steak prepared to taste like pastrami. If you set up a covered grill with banked coals, a drip pan, and soaked wood chips, you can smoke the meat in your own backyard.
"Pastrami Spice" Skirt Steak
Makes 8 servings
For the marinade:
1 cup pickle juice
1 large onion, chopped
15 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons kosher salt
4 1 pound skirt steaks (trimmed)
1/3 cup molasses
6 tablespoons "Pastrami Rub" (see below)
Purée the pickle juice, onion, garlic and salt in a blender or food processor.
Cover skirt steaks with marinade and refrigerate at least 5 hours or overnight.
Remove from refrigerator and scrape off marinade.
Pat the steaks dry, then toss them in molasses. Sprinkle evenly with rub.
Smoke cook at 250 degrees for 1 1/2 hours
Fuhgeddaboutit's Pastrami Rub
2 tablespoons pickling spice
1/2 cup coriander seeds
1/2 cup black peppercorns
1/4 cup paprika
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
Grind the pickling spice, coriander seeds, and peppercorns in a spice or coffee grinder. Mix thoroughly with the paprika and salt.
