Completely Homemade Pastrami Sandwich!

I'm really excited to share this sandwich with you because it's probably the best sandwich I'v ever made. If you follow my blog then you know I'm really into making pizzas but I also love making bread and curing meats! One of my favorite Western restaurants here in Chengdu is Munchwich. They're an European sandwich shop and it was here that I was first introduced to the wonderful Ciabatta bun. I'd never really had a proper artisan sandwich before this and the majority of my sandwich experiences were limited to subway and cheap sandwiches from my local grocery store. I'v made my own sandwiches in the past but they were using premade subrolls and deli meats from the store. While they were good, they don't even come close to a sandwich like this.

How can I make these homemade ciabatta buns and pastrami?

The ciabatta buns and pastrami was made 4-6 weeks ago and were frozen because I made such a huge batch. This post is not about the process for my homemade pastrami or homemade wheat ciabatta bread so there won't be recipes or directions on how to make them. I really love curing meats and baking breads but it's something i'm very new to and I want to document my process and advancement individually, so there will be separate posts about them in the future.

Are you tired of Steemit?

Absolutely not! I have been pretty low attendance these past 2-3 weeks but that's because my life has been absolutely hectic. I was on vacation in Hong Kong for a week and made a ton of posts about that! When I came back I was immediately thrown into a huge mess that is my work. A lot of employees recently quit and it meant I came back to complete chaos and was stuck working overtime every day for the past couple weeks. In addition to that I'm currently in the process of moving to a new apartment because my Landlord suddenly sold my apartment to a new ownership who want to move in themselves.

My contract wasn't finished and I don't have legal recourse here as a foreigner so it's been a crazy storm trying to sort everything out. It has all worked out though and i'm moving in with a couple friends who have an extra room but I'm currently packing up my 3 years worth of stuff. Hopefully by next week I should be completely done the move, settled in and back to posting more. I really love baking breads and curing meats and I will certainly keep experimenting and creating entirely new blogs dedicated to both these so make sure you follow!

The Homemade Pastrami

The pastrami is a 5lb (2.5kg) brisket that I cured in a homemade brine for 1 week. This was my second time making my own pastrami and it was a huge success compared to my first attempt. My first attempt completely failed for various reasons, but I was able to learn from my mistakes and make a much better second Pastrami. Unfortunately, I don't have a smoker so I'm not sure you can still call this pastrami. When cold it reminded me of a pastrami flavored roast beef, but when hot it was very tender and quite like pastrami.

After the brine, I coated the brisket in my own pastrami seasoning. I combined about 5-6 different seasonings in one crank jar and used that to grind the ingredients fresh over the brisket in a very heavy coat. I wrapped the brisket in 3 layers of foil and then cooked it for 6 hours on low heat.

The Wheat Ciabatta

I fell in love with Ciabatta bread after visiting that new Sandwich shop near me. I did a lot of research and came up with my own whole wheat ciabatta recipe. The batch in this picture is actually my third attempt and there is still a lot of room for improvement. I am obsessed with wheat bread but I'm still not really happy with it's ratio of bread flour to whole wheat flour so that's something I'm going to keep working on and adjusting in the future. I want a very wheaty tasting ciabatta bread so I won't give up until I'v attained it while not changing the essence of a ciabatta bread.

This is the mix! I actually partially combined it in a big bowl before seperating it into 2 parts and letting my bread maching knead them both individually (my bread machine isn't big enough to knead it all at once bc it was a lotttt of dough).

The two dough balls have proofed for a while and are almost ready for shaping.

I split each dough balls into 2 subrolls and let them sit for another 30-40 minutes before starting to bake them.

I stuck a pan full of water on the bottom shelf to try and provide the moisture that the ciabatta breads need to become what they are.

They turned out really good! Their color wasn't as deep and defined as I wanted but I was able to fix that during the final sandwich cooking stage by swiping the top with some olive oil.

The Sandwich

I'm very happy with this sandwich! The homemade wheat ciabatta bun is stuffed with my pastrami, a lot of cheddar, thinly sliced raw red onions and lots of jalapenos! It was a beautiful sandwich and the taste was really juicy and amazing despite not actually having any sauces. My next attempt I plan on creating a nice pastrami sauce to glop into it and then maybe pouring some of my favorite hotsauce inside after the final cooking!