Salt Peter?

[AprilB]

It's actually used more for preserving than adding any flavor.

It's used for fertilizer and can be used for bombs (unfortunately...they were going to use a variation of that here at the Nevada Test Site recently)

I had the same problem finding it so I opted making pastrami without. It turned out fine, but I had to use a brisket instead of the proper cut that you need so that changed the nature of it as well.

It didn't have the intense pastrami color and actually turned out to be a really good base for a pulled BBQ sandwich.

Of course it was also just one of bizillions of recipes out there.

Not a pastrami expert by all means other than knowing its' yummy.

April

[bigwheel]

Well you can purty well forget about Salt Peter I think. It been ruled illegal according to some I know. Now if you want to make something legal and edible I give you a hint over in the recipe section which will be found labled corned beef I think.

bigwheel

Originally Posted by Stewey

I have been looking for a good homeade corned beef recipe. Although I found a few that sounded pretty decent, they all called for salt peter. Here is the problem...I cannot find salt peter anywhere. None of the gorcery stores carry it, and the few specialty stores that I visited, none of them had it. In fact, one of those stores questioned me accusingly as if I was going to poison the water supply to our city.

Now I understand that the salt peter is to give the corned beef (and other meats for that matter) that pink color instead of the normal brown color of cooked beef. And after having made the corned beef, I realize that the salt peter isn't required. However, eating brown corned beef really was not very appetizing.

After searching and searching, the only place I could find salt peter was at certain hunting stores since salt peter is part of gun powder--and there are some people who like to stuff their own shotgun shells.

So my questions are 1) is there an acceptable substitute for salt peter in corned beef? and/or otherwise, 2) do you too see a problem adding an ingredient/chemical to your food that is purchased at a hunting store?

[Mrs.Butterworth]

<Insert joke about adding gunpowder to your food for that "explosive" flavor>