I have wanted to try a Pastrami Burger so tonight that is the way we went. Patti is from the East Coast and deli meats rule. We piled them high with lots of Swiss cheese on a mountain of pastrami. I am going to make these again very soon.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Grill: Royall 3000 Wood Pellet Grill

Pellets: Hickory

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs. ground sirloin or 80/20 (any leaner and you have DRY BURGERS)
• ½ lb. Pastrami, sliced
• 2 eggs, well beaten
• Swiss cheese, sliced
• ¼ cup crushed dried garlic
• ½ tsp. black pepper
• ½ tsp. Country Bob’s Seasoning Salt
• 1 cup Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce
• Buns of choice (onion buns here)
• Condiments of choice, Patti insists on Thousand Island dressing

Directions: Meat

Mix the beef, eggs, garlic, pepper, Country Bob’s Seasoning Salt and Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce in a bowl. Make your patties either by hand or use a press. Tonight we did it by hand. Ken likes the press because they’re a more uniform size. Patti likes to shape them by hand, because she likes them thick and cooked rare.

Put the patties back into the fridge until you are ready to put them on. (You grill hamburger patties COLD, the patties hold together better. Unlike steak, that goes on at room temp so it cooks more evenly.)

Cooking Directions: Royall wood pellet grill

Open the lid and set the dial to “Smoke”, after about five minutes shut the lid. Give it about 10 minutes to heat up. Patti has lined the drip pan with foil for me, it makes for easier clean up.

The Royall is a SMOKER!!! USE IT. I COLD SMOKE everything for 30 minutes before I put any heat under it. It is just magic what the smoke does to your food. The Royall uses food grade wood pellets and they come in lots of natural flavors.

Place burgers directly onto the center of the grill and just let it hang out in the smoke and get happy for 30 minutes or so. This is referred to as “cold smoking”; the temperature is around 165 degrees. 30 minutes of cold smoking is not enough to have any cooking effect on your meat. But, it is enough to open the pores up so that the meat can pick up all the flavor of the smoke.

After 30 minutes, turn the digital control up to 350 degrees and pull the meat off the grill.

When the grill comes up to temperature, put the meat back onto the center of the grill and cook until you reach your desired doneness. For big burgers, like this, I like to give them about 5 minutes a side. This will be about medium rare.

Add pastrami and Swiss cheese then, close the lid. It will melt in a minute or so. Then, you prepare your bun and you’re ready for a wonderful mix of flavors and textures.

Pile on the pastrami and cheese

Note: I get a lot of questions about the kind of pellets you can use with a recipe. Keep in mind that a recipe is just an outline. Some you need follow closely like when you are making bread, but most you can do anything you can dream, our favorite way to cook. Feel free to mix and match the pellets until you find a combination you really like.

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Grill: Gas Medium Indirect Heat

Preparing Grill: Medium Indirect Heat

Preheat your grill to medium heat (300 - 350) and turn off one side so you will be cooking with indirect heat. Add your wet hickory chips over the fire and oil the grill. A cooking spray is easiest for this. (Note: you can add your hickory directly to the grill or you can use foil smoke packets.(Two handfuls wet chips and one dry, fold foil into a packet, poke holes in it with a fork and you’re good to go.)

Note: I use a spray bottle when cooking on the grill filled with a Worcestershire sauce and liquid smoke mix that keeps things moist and adds tons of flavors. (Mix is 3 parts Worcestershire with 1 part liquid smoke)

Preparing Charcoal Grill

Medium Indirect Heat

Get the Grill ready, you will want your temperature of around 300-350 degrees. Remember, you are going high heat here for about 10 minutes. Bank your coals over to one side of your grill. Add your “drained wood chips” and you are good to go… Your cooking times and temps will be the same as above.  Add Some Country Bob’s before you add the Pastrami and Cheese.

About Our Recipes

We do our recipes on our patio where we have a lineup of grills, including the Royall 3000 wood pellet Grill/Smoker, Traeger, Charmglow, Char-Broil, Brinkman and Weber. I call it our “Wall of Grill”. Our grilling styles will fit pellet heads, gas, natural wood and even charcoal purists. Almost any of our recipes can be done on any kind of good BBQ.

The important thing to keep in mind is TIME & TEMPERATURE. You can even do some of them in the oven or crock pot, but, then you lose all the flavors you get from cooking outdoors. But sometimes it does rain.

Remember that a recipe is simply an outline; it is not written in stone. Don’t be afraid to make changes to suit your taste.

Take it and run with it….

Live your Passion,

Ken & Patti