Montreal Smoked Meat

I love sandwiches. My absolute favourite sandwich is the Montreal smoked meat sandwich. Piled high on rye bread with ballpark yellow mustard and served up with a kosher dill. It's Canada's answer to pastrami and the only place you can get it done right is Montreal. 

Making it is a campaign. It's epic. You do this and there's no doubt you qualify as hardcore. It takes 10 days start to finish. It takes up a bunch of room in your fridge. You have to tend to it every day. You have to smoke it then you have to steam it. Real work. But it's so worth it. It's magic meat.

Montreal smoked meat is cured, then smoked, then steamed just like pastrami. It's made with beef brisket though. Pastrami is made with the navel. You want to find a source for a high quality, untrimmed brisket. If the fat cap is any less than 3/8 inch stay away. Fat is critical. You want it. This isn't health food.

The first step is to cure the meat so you need to understand what you are playing with. There are different formulas for curing salts. This recipe uses pink salt or prague powder number 1. It's 6.25% sodium nitrite in salt. If you use a different curing salt follow the instructions to make sure you are using the right amount. More is not better here. You want to use what you need and no more. Nitrates...

Recipe

12-14 lb brisket (flat and point) with fat

The curing mix

8 oz black pepper corns, cracked
4 oz coriander seed, cracked
4 oz white sugar
3/4 cup kosher salt
3 Tbsp whole cloves
10 dried bay leaves, crumbled
3 Tsp prague powder number 1

The rub

6 oz, black pepper corns, cracked
3 oz coriander seed, cracked

Trim the brisket, removing pockets of hard fat and trim the fat cap (or just don't) to no less than 3/8 inch.

Combine all the cure ingredients and coat the brisket. You want to use all of it because you have included your curing salt in the mix and you need all of that. Wrap the brisket in plastic bags and place on a large cookie sheet. Refrigerate, turning the brisket over 2 times per day for 8 days.

On the eighth day, soak the brisket in a sink of cool water for 30 minutes. Drain the water and refill, continuing to soak the brisket. Repeat this for 3 hours (6 water changes), dry the brisket and coat it with the pepper corn, coriander seed rub. Back into the fridge it goes. 

One easy way to crack the spices is to put them into a food processor and pulse until you get a coarse "grind". Fast and easy.

On the ninth day smoke the brisket for 8-9 hours at 225-250F. You may need to separate the brisket into the flat and the point to fit it onto the smoker. Use maple chunks if you can get them. You aren't really going for an internal temp because you aren't cooking it until done. After 8-9 hours remove the brisket from the smoker, let cool slightly and refrigerate overnight. 

Out of the smoker before steaming

On the tenth day, set up a steamer that will fit all this wonderful brisket. Outside is better. This is going to smell. Smell good but smell strong. Think about this one well before the tenth day. You are going to need a big steamer. I use a turkey fryer with an inverted strainer and about 3 inches of water to steam my smoked meat.

Steam the brisket gently for around 3 hours. Make sure you don't let it boil dry. This is the final step in this journey - you don't want to screw up now. 

You are looking for a couple things. You want to get to about 195-200F internal temperature. You also can take this opportunity to learn what they mean by probe tender because you are going for that as well. 

Probe tender means when you insert your probe you don't  feel any resistance in the meat. It's like pushing a hot probe through warm butter. It just slides in. This is a good to learn if you are going to do briskets or pulled pork - it's how the pros figure out what's done and what's not.

Once you hit 195F/probe tender pull the brisket and let it cool to around 160-170F. This can take up to an hour. 

Once it's cool enough to handle slice thinly against the grain with a sharp knife. Serve a mix of the flat and the point in each sandwich. Pile it high on rye bread with yellow mustard.