Food Lab 44: The Perfect Reuben

Having on hand a 4 pound chunk of brisket, curing salt (aka “pink salt”), and a Big Green Egg, one’s mind drifts to pastrami. Upon learning than pastrami starts from corned beef (was I the last person to learn this?), Reuben Lab seemed obvious.

It goes without saying that the Reuben is one of the best sandwiches known to humankind, and, sure, we know that corned beef is the typical foundation of a Reuben. But in the spirit of Food Lab, why not try a pastrami Reuben to compare? Plus, a fully homemade Reuben brings together other fermentation activities that warrant regular practice as well.

To prepare the meats and to ferment as needed, this Food Lab had to start well before the actual day of Food Lab.

First off, the sauerkraut. Or more specifically, the sauerkrauts. Would a Reuben be better with a red cabbage kraut? How would a sweet pickled red cabbage fare on a Reuben? I started with the regular kraut: thinly sliced half a cabbage, layered into a ceramic crock with sea salt, celery seed, allspice, juniper berry, and caraway seed. I used the perfect amounts of each, good luck getting those data out of me. After about three weeks, the kraut was sufficiently sour but still a bit crunchy. A couple weeks later, I followed the exact same recipe with a small red cabbage.

Next was making a corned beef from scratch. From the Interwebs, I decided to largely follow Tori Avey’s recipe, although I made a homemade variant of “pickling spice.” The brine for the corned beef used was:

• 3 quarts of water
• 1 cup kosher salt
• 1/4 cup pink curing salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• ~3/4 inch ginger root
• 2 Tbsp mustard seed
• 1 tsp whole allspice
• 1 tsp whole black peppercorns
• 1 tsp whole cloves
• 2 tsp fennel seed
• 1 tsp dill seed
• 4 tsp whole coriander
• 1 tsp ground mace
• 4 bay leaves, crumbled
• 4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
• 1 whole dried red pepper

After heating the brine until all the sugar and salt dissolved, I cooled it back down, dropped the chunk o’ brisket in and put it in the fridge. Five days later (yes, flipping the beef daily as recommended), I removed the now-corned beef, drained it for a few minutes, then into a Ziploc and into the freezer.

Fast forward to Food Lab eve morning, we soaked the defrosted corned beef to desalinate it. In the evening, after cutting off a chunk of corned beef (to compare to commercial corned beef), we gave the beef a good rub (below) to rest overnight.

Into the spice mill and grind:

• 4 Tbsp whole black pepper
• 1 Tbsp whole coriander
• 2 tsp minced, toasted onion

Then add:

• 1 Tbsp brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp paprika
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp mustard powder

Then we proceeded to day-of meat preparation:

For the home-corned beef, I boiled the small chunk of meat for about an hour and 45 minutes (thinking the boiling time should be somewhat scaled to size). The commercial-corned beef was boiled for three hours. Upon tasting, the flavor of the home-corned beef seemed richer, but the fat didn’t seem to fully infuse all the meat. So perhaps the shortened boiling time was an error (albeit not so severe as to lead to ordering pizza).

For the pastrami, it was smoked for about four hours in the Egg at ~225 °F, until the meat reached an internal temperature of 165 °F. After about an hour’s rest for the meat, we steamed the pastrami for about two hours. About all I can say is “yum.”

The next variable to prepare for: regular caraway rye or pumpernickel? So I made two “torpedo” loaves of sourdough pumpernickel bread and two regular-style loaves of milk-based (soft crumb) caraway rye.

Pumpernickel Sourdough Rye

• About 3 cups of freshly fed sourdough starter
• 2 cups of pumpernickel flour
• 1 cups of whole wheat flour
• 1+ Tbsp salt
• ~2 Tbsp caraway seed
• About 2 cups of all-purpose flour

With those ingredients, I made a sponge the weight of a thick batter and left for an overnight rise. For each of two halves of the sponge, we kneaded in about about 1/2 cup of flour to form the torpedo loaves. After a second rise of about three hours, the loaves were baked at 425 °F directly on a stone, spritzing some water into the oven at the beginning of the bake. For these loaves, I might have added a bit more flour and kneaded each loaf a bit longer before the second rise, because the loaves as baked flattened out a bit. They still had a decent lightness, but made for skinny sandwiches.

Caraway Rye Bread

• 1 1/2 cups of milk
• 1 1/2 cups of water
• 2 Tbsp yeast
• 3 cups rye flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 Tbsp salt
• 1/4 c caraway seeds
• Enough all-purpose flour to make a decent dough (about 2 cups)

After the first rise of almost two hours, I kneaded a bit more flour into the dough and placed in two 9” loaf pans. After a second rise of a bit over an hour, the loaves were baked at 375 °F for roughly 40 minutes.

Finally, with all the elements assembled (thinly sliced Bavarian Swiss cheese and homemade Thousand Island dressing, based on this recipe but using homemade mayo, and with more garlic, shallot in place of the onion, and added Worcestershire sauce and sriracha, filled out the basic ingredients), we were ready to assemble our Reubens and test our variables...

First test: griddled vs ungriddled Reubens, classic ingredients (caraway rye, corned beef, regular kraut, cheese, and Thousand Island). Quick and simple outcome: griddled wins.

Second test: corned beef vs pastrami on caraway rye. Though we all loved the pastrami eaten out of hand, the Reuben was actually better served by the corned beef rather than the pastrami. Across the board, we all favored the traditional.

As we started thinking about additional testing, some other friends piled in and we started making different variations and serving ‘em without formal tasting and comparison. It did seem that the red kraut was well received, and the pastrami Reuben on the pumpernickel seemed popular. The pumpernickel maintained better structural integrity for the sandwiches as well. Our guests brought some excellent potato salad and cucumber salad, to join the green salad with pomegranate arils and walnuts and various and sundry pickled yummies.

Meanwhile, Chef Spouse plied us all with tiki drinks, details of which I’ll have to leave to another correspondent...