a Tale of Two Pastramis; Venison and Goose

   We had both left over cuts from a couple of deer, that we would otherwise probably grind up into sausage...and some goose breast.  We first used a basic (corned beef) dry rub and wet rub for corning both meats.  When it was done, the two versions of corned venison were quite different.  The wet cure venison tasted remarkably like traditional corned beef.  In spice, flavor and texture...but you can barely get that it was venison...at least compared to the dry corning.  The dry corning actually gave me the impression of a country ham.  that deep, condensed flavor that was all venison...and then a nice spice blend to support it.  Good, actually better...but it didn't really give me the impression of corned beef.  I have to admit, goose is one of the few proteins that I haven't really found a fondness for.  But corned, both the wet and dry corned goose was actually quite good.  You still got some of the goose flavor without a whole heap of it in your face.  There wasn't a large flavor difference this time between the wet and dry.  I would probably make the goose with a wet cure...just because it's a touch less fussy.

    So then it comes time to add more spices to the corned meat and smoke it...it's time to make pastrami.  When these got done it was really interesting that both the wet and dry goose were very tasty.  But now, the wet cured venison had really lost any venison flavor it had before...and the dry cure venison kind of loosened up a bit.  In the end, I like the pastrami from the dry cured venison better than the wet.  

   We then took each of these and steamed them for just a touch...all of them benefited from the steaming.  it kind of brought all the spice flavors together.  But, be warned...don't steam them for long...you just want to get them to a warmed temperature...I wouldn't recommend cooking them in steam also.  

   We ran a light smoke on the pastrami in 9f temperature with plenty of wind...the smoker didn't even hiccup.  I just had a small portion of lump and some peach wood in there...it came up nice and held surprisingly well.  It does have a double construction, the inner channel is for smoke/heat travel and the outer portion has 2" of insulation...but I was still surprised!  It's funny, the following day was going to have a high of about -5f (again).  I told my brother, I'd like to see how it does with those temperatures!  I quickly lost that feeling the next day!