Hot Pastrami on Rye 44, Seahawks 6
This fall we are combining our love of the football and our dream of learning to cook by preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks opponent.
Seahawks vs. Hot Pastrami on Rye Preview.
Buying caraway seeds made this whole project worth it. We kept finding them close to the dill weed, and that made us smile. Oh, how we wished for an overhead page for a dill weed price check. We have simple wants.
Okay, enough of that.
Keeping with the New York delicatessen theme of this recipe, like many Seattle sports fans, we feel as if we have been wandering in the desert forever. In the span of just over twelve hours, we watched the two football teams we root for lose by a combined score of 92-20.
Our bread started off down that path, however, unlike the Seahawks, we were able to pull things together and make a successful loaf. As we put the rye flour, white bread flour, salt, sugar, honey, and other ingredients into the bowl, it seemed very powdery.
The kind of powder one would wish for if they were making skiing plans, or cocaine, not, however, when making bread--unless the bread was for a cocaine-fueled ski trip.
The mixer agreed with our assumption, as instead of raw dough, our concoction was turned into clumps. Usually when things go bad in our life we add beer, so we were overjoyed when we saw the recipe called to add a cup and half of beer. A little better, but not great.
If this had happened last year, we would have blamed God and ripped our crucifix off the wall (token Signs reference of the post). This year, we knew if things were too dry, simply add liquid. Not just any liquid. Antifreeze is bad. Cooking oil is good. Pineapple juice is bad. Water is good. More beer, whyz zuh hell not.
Soon we had an actual mound of dough. We put it aside to let the yeast go to town, licked the bowl, and went to bed. When we woke up, it was now a gigantic mound of dough, and we had to punch it back down to a normal size, before shaping it into loaf form. Seems like we could have saved a step. Then, we let it rise for a few more hours. It wouldn’t stop growing!!!
Before it went in the oven, we brushed the top with an egg so it would shine (FACT: people like eating shiny things) and added more caraway seeds.
One of the pluses to making bread is that your kitchen will smell really good.
We stopped at the store to buy pickles, pastrami, and the key condiment, Russian dressing. We wanted Newman’s Own, a tribute to the fallen fellow half-Jew. Sadly, we could not find a single bottle. We know it exists, we’ve seen him on the label with that big Russian hat.
While we’re on the subject of those labels, Mr. Newman is seemingly dressed up to match every style, except on his Light Asian Dressing. Even on his salsa he is wearing a sombrero. It’s not like they had to go all Mickey Rooney with him. What’s wrong in putting him in a conical straw hat?
We asked Seattlest’s Asian expert Frank if this would be offensive. "No." Okay, let’s make this happen.
After we got some other brand of dressing, all we had to do was make the sandwiches. Simple, simple, simple, we’ve known how to do that since we were four, back when the Seahawks were 4-12, the Mariners were 59-103, and the Huskies couldn’t crack the top six.
NEXT WEEK: Seahawks vs. Bratwurst and Cheese with Secret Stadium Sauce, 1pm.
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