When we find good-looking cuts of meat at the store, we pick them up. Aki found a good-looking, well-marbled 2-bone end cut rib roast. We scored the meat with 1-inch cross-hatching that was 1/4 of an inch thick. Then we seasoned the meat with our meat seasoning from Ideas in Food. Aki adapted the meat seasoning on the rib roast with the Izak N.37 sweet chili blend from La Boite. We let the meat air dry in the refrigerator at least overnight, and with thick cuts like these, 2 nights is fine. When the roast was dry, I fired up our tube smoker. We cold-smoked the roast for 2 hours. Then we returned the meat to the refrigerator for another day. We could have used it immediately. The original plan was to roast it whole. But with various delays and a shifting number of people at the table, we called an audible and cut it in half. The rib eye was seared and slow-roasted at 200°F until it reached a perfect medium rare. The other half was frozen for another day and another project. The smoke permeated the meat. It did not turn the roast into bacon; what it did was add a wonderful layer of deliciousness. The finished beef was reminiscent of pastrami in flavor, the floral chili blend replacing the coriander and black pepper. The meat was juicy and succulent. And since Aki served the steak with roasted fingerling potatoes finished with sautéed sauerkraut (thanks Rich!), the association to pastrami was amplified even further.
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