Delicatessan Favorites

Corned Beef

It’s got nothing to do with corn on the cob. The name comes from coarse pellets of salt, the size of corn kernels, that were rubbed into dry-cured meat to preserve it in the days before refrigeration. In England, the dish is called salt beef. Brisket is the favored cut for corned beef, the layer of fat adding flavor. Two methods are used for curing (or corning) the meat. For the dry cure, salt, sugar, spices and preservatives are rubbed into the meat, which is then layered in barrels for one to three weeks. The wet cure soaks the beef in water mixed with the curing mixture to create a brine. After curing, the beef is washed to remove excess salt and then boiled before being served. Today most of this is handled by meat processors. Individual delis sometimes season as they wish.

Pastrami

Making pastrami is a more varied and complex operation. The word comes from the Romanian pastra, meaning preserve, and pastrama, meaning “cured meat,” via the Turkish basturma describing pressing of spiced meat. The cut of meat used comes from the forequarters of the steer, usually the deckle, the leaner shoulder cut, or the navel or plate, a smaller cut from the chest that is fatter and juicier. The meat is cured dry—by rubbing the outside with a paste of salt, sugar, spices and preservatives—or wet—by soaking it in a salty brine, sometimes with spices added. Curing can take several weeks, with the dry cure taking a little longer, although it results in a tastier, firmer product. The mixture used for the rub—a secret combination for each cook—can include black pepper, coriander, juniper berries, garlic, paprika, allspice, even red wine vinegar or cardamom. After the meat absorbs the flavors, it is smoked over hardwood sawdust for two to 12 hours. Ideally, pastrami should be tender, grainy, a little crumbly, light red in color and with just enough fat to add juicy flavor. Finally, the meat is steamed for several hours, sometimes with the deli’s own spices added, then kept hot until it is sliced against the grain, plopped onto good rye bread with a firm brown bottom crust and spread with mustard.

Pickles

Pickle barrels are the heart of the old-fashioned deli, and customers expect a plate of free pickles on their table. Pickles go back some 4,000 years to the time when people learned to use a salty brine to preserve cucumbers. The first American pickle plant was built in 1820. Pickle purveyors on the Lower East Side started out with pushcarts, then opened stores; today there are 25 billion pickles packed each year in the U.S. The famous New York barrel-cured sour pickles copied Eastern European recipes, curing the pickles in salt brine with garlic and spices (and added chemicals or preservatives), then storing them in barrels for up to six months. Popular varieties include full or kosher sour dills with a combination of fresh garlic and dill, other spices and saltwater flavors; half sour, the most common in Jewish delis; bright green new pickles that ferment for just a few days; and spicy hot pickles for those with strong stomachs.

The Reuben

This grilled sandwich made with corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing on rye bread has become a deli staple—although there’s nothing kosher about the combination of cheese and meat and the sandwich’s roots are anything but European. There are two competing origin stories; take your pick. One claims that Arnold Reuben, the founder of Reuben’s Restaurant and Delicatessen in New York, made the first such sandwich in 1914 when a hungry actress asked him for a special sandwich. He kept adding things to the bread until it was a foot high, and she told him, “That’s the best sandwich I ever tasted!” The other version attributes the sandwich to Reuben Kulakofsky, an Omaha wholesale grocer who played in a weekly poker game whose members made their own sandwiches. After Reuben created his special, one of his fellow players put it on the menu at the Blackstone Hotel. A Reuben Club in Carmel, Indiana, meets regularly to evaluate the hundreds of variations, which can also include coleslaw, dark pumpernickel bread, roast beef and even Virginia ham. As David Sax describes it, the Reuben is “so goyish it’s practically kosher.”—Eileen Lavine