I had no particularly good ideas for how to write this latest Charcutepalooza post, so I’m going to map the challenge backwards, from mouth to table to kitchen to farm. A regression analysis on corned beef.

Before I do, I should mention that brining and pickling are among my favorite things to do in the kitchen. No doubt, my saintly fiancée has been quietly puzzled time and time again to see me bee-lining for the kitchen upon returning from work, only to pick up a jar of handmade pickles and stare at it…shake it…roll it in my hands ever so gently. Ridiculous, when you think about the fact that the pickles usually aren’t going anywhere for weeks or months. But I can’t help myself. It’s the craft.

The sandwich staring out at you is the “Pho” Corned Beef Banh Mi w/ Ruhlman’s Pate de Campagne, David Chang’s Momofuku Quick Pickles, Cilantro, and Yogurt-Agave-Sriracha sauce. The corned beef was based on Ruhlman’s recipe as well, but I decided to take it in a different direction. More on that later.

The excitement of a banh mi is in the layering of distinct flavors that come together unbelievably well in a sandwich. Rich pate. Salty meat. Sweet pickles. Bright cilantro. Spicy condiment. Many levels marrying in a wonderful and interesting way at first bite. I never get tired of it.

I was unsure about how corned beef would work in a sandwich that usually takes crispy roasted pork, but I was pleasantly surprised in the result. And I’m only able to note that – the contrast between mine and the traditional version – because I went to the Banh Mi Throwdown at Ba Bay in DC on Monday night and tasted six different takes from six great DC chefs (including the recently crowned DC Prince of Porc, Scott Drewno of The Source by Wolfgang Puck). In the traditional, I’m usually not able to pinpoint a distinct meat flavor over the marinades, the sauces, the pickles, the liver. In my version, a true-but-not- overpowering corned beef taste was unmistakably there.

We had a few friends over for dinner to be my guinea pigs. Along with the corned beef and fixins, we put together a banh mi bar with brined chicken and grilled tofu.

Yogurt-Agave-Sriracha Sauce

One half cup of Greek yogurt. One tablespoon of agave nectar. One teaspoon of Sriracha. Good pinch of salt. Simple.

Tofu

I pressed firm tofu, sliced it into planks, and vacuum sealed it for about two hours in a soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, gomasio (sesame salt), chili sauce, ginger and garlic marinade. The vac-pac trick is my go-to with tofu now; it’s the only way I’ve found to really force some taste into it. I cooked the slabs just before serving on a really hot grill, about five minutes per side. For the next couple days after dinner, I made delicious sandwiches with the grilled tofu. A nice surprise.

Chicken

True to my Charcutepalooza formula, I decided to make a smoked meat along with the specific challenge, and brine was a perfect link. I bought a free range chicken and brined it for about eight hours in water, kosher salt, blood orange, white wine, ginger, garlic, sambal oelek, and chopped plum. I then seasoned the chicken with gomasio and put it on a 450 degree Big Green Egg for about one hour and 20 minutes. It came out, as always with the BGE, crispy, juicy, smoky, and nutty from the sesame. But the asian flavors in the brine didn’t really impart, probably because I didn’t bring the ingredients to a simmer together, cool the liquid down, and then brine. Delicious, but I can improve it next time.

Corned Beef

On D-Day, I rinsed the brined corned beef and covered the pieces in a pot with a pho-style simmering liquid: water, a splash of soy sauce, some kosher salt, a big handful of cilantro, sambal oelek, garlic, banged lemongrass stalks, star anise, and two cloves. Over the course of 2.5 hours at a low heat, the corned beef got really tender and my house got filled with that crave-inducing pho smell.

But the real payoff was in the taste. The corned beef actually had an Asian zap to it. Salty and spicy, with a hint of citrus. This was no doubt because of the cooking liquid, and the similar brining liquid the beef was immersed in for the previous five days. For that, I took Ruhlman’s brine base (water, salt, pink salt, sugar) and built on it with the same ingredients from the simmering liquid.

Pickles and Pate

This challenge was exactly the kind I like to sink my teeth into. It took advance planning and legwork to get it right. Luckily, saintly fiancé was out of town the week preceding, so I had plenty of space to make a mess and geek out.

Quick pickles are all David Chang. His recipe is so simple. I used sliced carrots/daikon (classic banh mi topping), cucumbers, and asparagus, which I jarred with boiled salt and sugar brine. A week sealed in the fridge, and out came a savory-sweet snack with crunch, which is so important to a successful banh mi.

The pate de campagne was a bigger production, but I come from a family of pate maniacs, so this was a labor of love. I was thinking of my grandfather and dad the whole time. I can still remember the little ceramic jar dad used for his chicken liver pate. He cooked about twice a decade, but that jar always seemed well-used. I’ll make corned tongue one of these days because granddad loved it so much.

I used Ruhlman’s recipe straight away for the pate, and I was pleased with the result, although I personally prefer more liver taste. The campagne (country) style pate, much like boudin, uses liver only as a flavor enhancer, and it was well-textured and delicious. I froze a little of it for when my grandmother comes to visit for the first time in our new house.

Only one piece of the pie didn’t work – the baguettes. I had dreams in my mind of pulling fresh, crusty baguettes off the Big Green Egg right before meal time, but my attempts the week before the meal were flops. I used ciabatta instead, which still came out crusty and good.

Now back to the first link in the chain. That big, beautiful piece of pork liver from those oft-mentioned Ossabaws I butchered last December. I’m always looking for ways to put it to use. It demanded to be made into pate, which then of course belongs on a banh mi.

Or maybe it was the Banh Mi Throwdown announcement I got via email around the time the March challenge was announced. Whatever it was, the successful experimentation and improvisation helped my culinary confidence, and I’ll be back to this recipe or versions of it again.

Sam Hiersteiner grew up in Kansas City, and the answer to your next question is “Arthur Bryant’s.” He lives in Washington, DC, where he consults for non-profits and foundations by day and entertains pipe dreams of becoming a butcher after dark. Read his full Sam’s Good Meats archive on HyperVocal.

Also, make sure to follow Sam on Twitter @samsgoodmeats.

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