The corned beef originated in Ireland and made its way to the US and Canada somewhere around the 1800s when a lot of Irish immigrants came to the territory due to potato famine. Like the Montreal smoked meat and the pastrami, the corned beef is usually made out of brisket which normally brought from the lower chest of a cow. The meat for the corned beef is first brined with a liquid of sugar, salt, black pepper, bay leaves, cloves, juniper berries and dill. Once the meat brines is completed, it is then boiled. The finished corned beef depends solely on the initial seasoning from where it gets the flavour. The corned beef is popularly served as Reuben sandwich or along with cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day. On the other hand, Montreal smoked meat is counted as the hybrid of corned beef and the pastrami. Taste the most delicious Montreal smoked meat from viande fumée Jarry and experience the hybrid of corned beef and New York pastrami.
The Montreal smoked meat is prepared from the brisket particularly from the middle portion of the brisket which is normally a long cut of muscle and fat stretching from foreleg to underbelly. The meat is a bit tougher towards the closer of the leg but the navel at the other end is juicier and fattier. The Montreal smoked meat normally uses the middle portion that is in between the extremes of muscle and the fat. The Montreal smoked meat is generally dry-cured and soaked like corned beef to desalinate the meat before smoking and seasoning. The Montreal smoked meat is smoked a bit longer in comparison to the pastrami for enhancing flavour.
When you compare the three recipes namely the corned beef, the Montreal smoked meat and the pastrami, they all use the similar spices like coriander, black pepper, mustard seeds and garlic as key ingredients for seasoning. However, the Montreal smoked meat uses less sugar during the process of curing in comparison to the other two counterparts the pastrami and the corned beef. Nevertheless, the Montreal smoked meat is served exactly like the pastrami in a sandwich on rye with a plenty of mustard.
The New York pastrami is normally dry-cured, or in other words, its meat gets lathered with sugar and salt until it gets fully absorbed. Then it is put to go through a process of seasoning with spices and then smoked. The modern-day pastrami is made both following the Romanian pastrama that is made with mutton and pork and the Turkish pastirma that is made with beef.
