Recipe: Pastrami Beef Rib

The Dutch Ale House is an iconic Saugerties institution. Beloved by locals, the brick building has seen many incarnations, but it's been a bar in some form or another since before Prohibition. Earlier this year, husband-and-wife duo Dallas and Ted Gilpin took over the business. Throughout February and March they renovated, replacing the “guts of the place”—the plumbing, electric, coolers, and beer lines— and elevating and integrating the dining room. "Not only did we undertake to revamp space, but we also revamped menu and how the food was made,” Dallas says.
One popular new addition to the menu is a pastrami beef rib, introduced by the new chef Jonathan Botta. "I wanted to create a beef dish that wasn’t just a steak," Botta says. "I have a love for pastrami and figured that I would do the whole pastrami process with a beef rib instead of brisket. With this process I was able to achieve the pastrami taste with a rustic or almost a primitive feel with the big bone-in beef ribs."

At the restaurant, the dish is served with sautéed fennel, celery root, creamer potatoes, swiss chard, and a side of horseradish sauce (recipe below) and pickles. Try your hand at home or head to Saugerties to get it straight from the source.

Beef Rib Plate or Short Rib Plate (Bone In)

Ingredients

• 1 beef rib plate or short rib plate (bone in)
  
• 1 gallon water
  
• 1.5 cups salt
  
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
  
• ¼ cup honey
  
• ½ cup soy sauce
  
• 1 cup regular sugar
  
• 2T Juniper Berry
  
• 2 Cinnamon Sticks
  
• 1T All Spice
  
• 5 Bay Leaves
  
• ¼ cup black peppercorns
  
• 7 cloves of garlic
  
• 1T Coriander
  
• 1T Mustard Seed
  
• 8 tsp of Pink Salt Cure #1

Directions

• Bring all ingredients to a boil, then chill. Place beef plate in brine and let sit for 72 hours. Remove beef plate, rise it, and pat dry.
  
• Season with Pastrami Rub (2 parts toasted coriander, 1 part black pepper)
  
• Place season beef rib on smoker and using maple chips smoke the beef rib for 6-8 hours. Remove and wrap in foil and place in oven at 350 for 1.5-2 hours until beef rib is tender. Remove and slice between the bones and serve.

Horseradish Sauce

• 2 cups sour cream
  
• ¼ c horseradish
  
• 2T chopped dill
  
• 1tsp garlic powder 
  
• 1T mustard
  
• 1 lemon zested and juiced
  
• Salt and pepper to taste