They say everyone is a little bit Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. Whether you agree with that adage or not, I’ve yet to meet someone who can’t appreciate a well executed piece of corned beef. 

Sure, sometimes it doesn’t come out right. Maybe the beef wasn’t corned right; perhaps the brisket just had too much fat and not enough good meat; but when all those hurdles are overcome, a sweet and savory, fall-apart-in-your-mouth brisket is hard to disagree with. 

So tons of folks get excited at St. Patrick’s Day,  if only for an excuse to enjoy this special meal. They get their brisket; they cook it up; they have their celebration with the family and then life goes on. But maybe they didn’t cook all of it—maybe in the fridge waits the other half of that large brisket, already corned. 

Maybe you planned on cooking it and prolonging the festivities—but now you’re not so sure. If not cooked as corned beef, what else can you do with it? The answer is simple: pastrami.

Take it from a guy who butchers for a living—we’re always looking for ideas to use up odds and ends of good meat. 

I recently had a few brisket tips that were still fresh and corned. It looked like we weren’t going to be able to sell them. Considering them fair game, I decided to make pastrami.

Now for proper pastrami, you should coat the outside of the brisket with a healthy layer of loosely ground black peppercorns. I didn’t have any readily available and simply did without. Even though that was a simple step and it felt as though I were cheating, things are harder than they need to be the rest of the time so I took it as a blessing and moved on.

I hung the few briskets I had on smoking hooks and placed them in the smoker. I turned on the heat and started my fire in the smoke box. I placed a thermometer probe in a few of them and went along with my day, leaving the work to the smoke. 

Late that night, the meat came out and went into the cooler to chill. The next day, I was excited to taste what I could already smell. I set up the slicer and began peeling off thin slices of un-peppered pastrami. 

They were not going to make it as far as a sandwich. I grabbed a few tender sheets and popped them right in my mouth. They had a candy-like sweetness and a light and feathery texture. The thinner I sliced it, the more this was enhanced, but even when I grabbed the stub from the end of the block to chew on, I was not disappointed.

The way out here we don’t waste a good bite if it can be smoked overnight. There’s more than one way to cook a brisket, and when corning them you have at least two good options. And if you aren’t going to eat yours, just give me a call.