How to Grill Turkey Pastrami

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By Steven Raichlen

Published 2001

  • About
METHOD: Indirect grilling
ADVANCE PREPARATION: 24 hours for curing the turkey breast
As a nice Jewish boy from Baltimore, I’ve been eating pastrami all my life, but it had never occurred to me that you could actually make it from scratch at home. Then I dined at the Park Avenue Cafe in New York City, where chef David Burke makes pastrami from just about everything—even salmon. The fact is pastrami is a curing and smoking process, not just a dish. Now I’ve become a pastrami fanatic, and one of my favorite iterations is turkey. It is slightly sweet, slightly salty, highly aromatic, delectably smoky, and surprisingly easy to make.