Goose Pastrami

SPRIGS

I love to hunt waterfowl.  All three of my kids love it as well.  We have shared many great memories in the blind together.  Although I love to hunt ducks and geese, I have never been that crazy about eating them.  Luckily - there are a few people in my home town who will gladly take every duck and goose that we shoot.  

I ran across a few recipes for goose pastrami and thought it sounded pretty interesting.  After combing several of them, I came up with the following:

Breast the geese.  Pick out the best breasts - not shot up, etc... for this batch I picked out the 6 best breasts.  I then cleaned them thoroughly, removed all skin, fat, and silver skin and then soaked the breasts in cold water in the fridge for 7 days, changing the water twice a day.  In my opinion, this helps remove a lot of blood and the gamy taste that Canada Geese usually have.

Brine - for 7 days in the fridge stirring the brine every day.

Brine:

2 pints water
6 Tablespoons Morten's Tender Quick
4 Tablespoons Garlic Powder
6 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
4 Tablespoons Pickling Spice

Bring this all to a boil to dissolve the sugar.  Cool it down with ice.  Then place breasts in the brine.

After removing breasts from the brine, rinse them with cold water to remove the pickling spice, etc... then soak the breasts in cold water in the fridge for 2 hours.

Rub:

4 Tablespoons pepper
2 Tablespoons Corriander
1 teaspoon mustard powder
2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
1 Tablespoon Paprika
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder

Remove breasts from the cold water and pat dry.  I then rubbed the breasts with cooking oil to help the rub stick.  Apply rub and back into the fridge for 1 day.

Smoke with Oak / Pecan or your wood of choice at 225 until an internal temp of 150.  Took about 2.5 hours.

I then let them cool and then sliced as thin I could slice them with a sharp knife and vacuumed sealed.  A lot of the rub comes off during slicing but the flavor is still there.  The next batch I will borrow my buddies commercial slicer and slice these as thin as I can possibly get them as goose is a darn tough piece of meat and the thinner slicers were much more tender.

All in all - the pastrami flavor is there and this is a good way to use up some of those geese.  It doesn't have the same texture as pastrami made with brisket but it is still pretty tasty.  Especially for Canada Goose.  For reheating purposes - I am thinking to just boil some water, remove the pot from the heat and then place the vacuumed sealed bag in the water for 10 minutes or so.    Serve on rye bread with spicy mustard and swiss cheese or just eat it as a snack.

I will post pics in the following posts.

SPRIGS

The kids.

SPRIGS

In the cold water after the brine.

SPRIGS

After the rub.

Photo Egg

Great bonding with the kids...

SPRIGS

Off the Egg.

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SPRIGS

Sliced and sealed.

SmokingPiney

Awesome! 

CornfedMA

Looks like it came out well. I think I’ll give this a shot. I usually make Polish sausage or kielbasa with all my Snows or Canadas. Hank Shaw’s Polish sausage recipe is my go to. 

Killit_and_Grillit

This looks awesome. I’ve got a few in the freezer I will give this a try. Never would have thought of that. 

Im with @CornfedMA. I usually go sausage with mine. I never really cared for Goose but I’m sure that has to do with many years in a hunting camp with a bunch of young guys rubbing oil and cooking them too hot and too long. 

SPRIGS

I would suggest adding some salt to the rub.  I don't know squat about Tender Quick, Instacure, etc... but all of the recipes suggested desalinating the breasts after removing from the brine by soaking in cold water.  Yet the brine recipe didn't call for any salt.  Is tender quick and instacure salty?  I didn't find them salty at all though.

SPRIGS

I just made a sandwhich with this - Jewish Rye bread, spicy mustard and swiss cheese.  Very tasty.  

DoubleEgger

I appreciate you shooting every goose you can. They are a royal PITA around here. 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

SPRIGS said:

I would suggest adding some salt to the rub.  I don't know squat about Tender Quick, Instacure, etc... but all of the recipes suggested desalinating the breasts after removing from the brine by soaking in cold water.  Yet the brine recipe didn't call for any salt.  Is tender quick and instacure salty?  I didn't find them salty at all though.

Tenderquick is almost all salt with a little sugar and like .5% sodium nitrite and sodium Nitrate

there was plenty of salt there so the desalination pulled out more that you would have liked. I use the Man Vs Meat pastrami recipe and have done brisket, venison backstrap and duck breast with good results. That recipe does not desalinate and has salt in the rub. Either cut the desalination in half (or just rinse and skip it) next time and see how that works for you.

This looks fantastic by the way. 

SPRIGS

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

SPRIGS said:

I would suggest adding some salt to the rub.  I don't know squat about Tender Quick, Instacure, etc... but all of the recipes suggested desalinating the breasts after removing from the brine by soaking in cold water.  Yet the brine recipe didn't call for any salt.  Is tender quick and instacure salty?  I didn't find them salty at all though.

Tenderquick is almost all salt with a little sugar and like .5% sodium nitrite and sodium Nitrate

there was plenty of salt there so the desalination pulled out more that you would have liked. I use the Man Vs Meat pastrami recipe and have done brisket, venison backstrap and duck breast with good results. That recipe does not desalinate and has salt in the rub. Either cut the desalination in half (or just rinse and skip it) next time and see how that works for you.

This looks fantastic by the way. 

Thanks for the education on the salt.  I was thinking about just skipping that step next time.  Appreciate the information and suggestions!

SPRIGS

DoubleEgger said:

I appreciate you shooting every goose you can. They are a royal PITA around here. 

I'll try to kill em all!!!  I much prefer hunting ducks but our duck season is closed now until January 8 so we'll keep at the geese until then!!

The Cen-Tex Smoker

SPRIGS said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

SPRIGS said:

I would suggest adding some salt to the rub.  I don't know squat about Tender Quick, Instacure, etc... but all of the recipes suggested desalinating the breasts after removing from the brine by soaking in cold water.  Yet the brine recipe didn't call for any salt.  Is tender quick and instacure salty?  I didn't find them salty at all though.

Tenderquick is almost all salt with a little sugar and like .5% sodium nitrite and sodium Nitrate

there was plenty of salt there so the desalination pulled out more that you would have liked. I use the Man Vs Meat pastrami recipe and have done brisket, venison backstrap and duck breast with good results. That recipe does not desalinate and has salt in the rub. Either cut the desalination in half (or just rinse and skip it) next time and see how that works for you.

This looks fantastic by the way. 

Thanks for the education on the salt.  I was thinking about just skipping that step next time.  Appreciate the information and suggestions!

I don’t know if you have a sous vide but that will turn those goose breasts in to buttery goodness

SPRIGS

Been thinking long and hard about getting one.  Perhaps this will push me over the edge to finally buy one.  Any recommendations?

The Cen-Tex Smoker

SPRIGS said:

Been thinking long and hard about getting one.  Perhaps this will push me over the edge to finally buy one.  Any recommendations?

Anova or Joule. 

Spaightlabs

We shoot a few hundred geese a year from out pit - used to process them into jerky, sausage, snack sticks etc .  Like the pastrami a lot, but found an Armenian marinade that makes for killer kabobs/bites.  Will track that down and send it to you.