My son in law has made pastrami from scratch in the past--corning the beef and then smoking it. And it was delicious. This was several years ago. My son has a smoker (actually more than one!!) and Aldi's always has good corned beef on sale at St. Patrick's Day. So I bought two points (fattier than the flat) and I soaked one overnight in water in fridge to remove some of the salt. I always do this when just using it for corned beef--just too salty for me. The points weighed just under 3# each. The flat looked a bit bigger.
SO last night we had the results. My son also had a flat he had purchased which he also did. He did a rub of lots of spices (I think it was supposedly the Katz Deli rub), smoked it for 4 hours and then put in the oven for a couple of more hours. ALL was absolutely delicious. The flat was predictably very lean and salty--even a bit dry. The points were luciously tender moist and flavorful. We had tastings of the individual cuts and then he made incredible and "correct" Reubens!! Also had bangers and mash--equally delicious. I need to check but I should ask if there was a lot of shrinkage--it really looked like they held up pretty well.
I'm going to try to get a couple of corned beef points to freeze to have for later in the year for a beach treat.
SO last night we had the results. My son also had a flat he had purchased which he also did. He did a rub of lots of spices (I think it was supposedly the Katz Deli rub), smoked it for 4 hours and then put in the oven for a couple of more hours. ALL was absolutely delicious. The flat was predictably very lean and salty--even a bit dry. The points were luciously tender moist and flavorful. We had tastings of the individual cuts and then he made incredible and "correct" Reubens!! Also had bangers and mash--equally delicious. I need to check but I should ask if there was a lot of shrinkage--it really looked like they held up pretty well.
I'm going to try to get a couple of corned beef points to freeze to have for later in the year for a beach treat.