This is a “Reuben.” If you feel like your arteries are functioning a little too well and your cholesterol is a little too optimal, why not whip one up? Just one will take care of that.
Ideally you will need a stovetop grill for this but in a pinch and with some juggling you can use a large skillet.
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1 lb. seasoned deli pastrami, sliced
4 large slices of rye bread
A little butter
4 slices of Swiss cheese, preferably sliced for you at the deli and not out of a Kraft package or something
1 cup sauerkraut, again from the deli*
1/2 cup Russian dressing*
Two large sour deli pickles
*One of these days I should do a post about making your own salad dressings and sauerkraut and relishes and chutneys and various sauces. I don’t can or pickle but as long as the ingredients are canned and/or pickled there’s all kinds of things I can do with them.
These sandwiches aren’t very good cold so you want to heat everything up save for the Russian dressing and the pickles. For that matter they’re very hard to revive as leftovers so bring your appetite and plan on throwing away whatever you can’t eat. Sometimes I can dispose of leftovers by dropping them into the dog’s kibble but I can just imagine the terrible price I’d pay if he got sauerkraut and Russian dressing into that stomach of his.
Start by warming up the pastrami on one side of your grill. It will throw off some grease so try to keep that as segregated as you can. If you’re doing this in a skillet, remove the pastrami with a slotted spatula, move to a plate lined with paper towel, stash in the oven to keep warm, and clean out the skillet. Next, on the other side of the grill or in your skillet, warm up the sauerkraut. This too will release some juices but not much and it’s pretty flavorless. Then, butter all four slices of the rye and put them butter-side down. Assembly styles can vary slightly but this is what I do. Put a slice of cheese on each bread slice and let the cheese melt a little. Put half the pastrami on each of two bread slices and half the sauerkraut on each of the remaining two slices. Turn off the heat and move the four slices still open-faced to two plates. Spoon a little cool or room-temperature Russian dressing over the sauerkraut and carefully (using the spatula again, and a second one or something else to hold down the pastrami) flip upside down and top the sauerkraut/Russian dressing slices. Slice each sandwich in half and serve immediately. It’s customary to accompany with a comically large deli pickle. That ought to be enough to hold you over until dinner, or make this your dinner, so save your French fries or potato chips for another day. If you’re not already wearing one already adorn yourself with your medic alert necklace or bracelet before you take your first bite, just in case.
I gotta quit coming here before lunch….
I’ve lost most of my childhood food aversions, but one that has stuck is caraway seeds. I love sandwiches like this, but they have to be on unseeded rye. It’s a shame that caraway is so often the default, because I like rye bread a lot, and the lurking landmines make shopping for it a pain.
Reubens are delicious on Pumpernickel, if you aren’t a fan of the seeds, too!😉
That was how I grew up with them–technically with corned beef, not pastrami, and always on Dark Pump, rather than a lighter rye… the bite of the Pumpernickel balances out the other flavors incredibly well💖
You are just trolling @keitelblacksmith now.
Oh don’t worry. With some of these recipes I’m trolling myself.
Pastrami is too fatty for me. But I do like the turkey version, The Rachel.
This may be sacrilege or just Midwesterners not liking them there scurrry communists, but we always had reubens with thousand island dressing!
I don’t know if it was communism, or convenience up here!😉
Ours also typically use corned beef, rather than pastrami–i think probably again, because that was what was available more easily in this area. Outside of fancy/specialty meat shops, I can’t recall Pastrami being an available thing when I was a kid. But you could always find corned beef brisket at the grocery store, ready to sprinkle the seasonings packet over, then bake in the oven until it was cooked.
I love deli sandwiches. A well done Reuben is welcome to this tummy.
There is a New York Style deli restaurant not far where I live. They serve my favorite, Montreal Smoke Meat on Rye. If you supersize it then you basically gain 2kg with all the fries and coleslaw that go with it.
Again, like fried chicken, I don’t go often because I also like to keep myself at a healthy weight.
Never developed a taste for sauerkraut. When I want to eat a sandwich that I will be disgusted with myself for eating later I go to this diner that has a pretty good cubano. The cuban bread I made last week got me thinking about them so it may be time.