I started with the Cabela's Venison Pastrami recipe. From the freezer I pulled one elk roast (eye of round), one deer roast (bottom round), and one pronghorn roast (bottom round) and brought together all the ingredients for the cure. I toasted the spices in a cast iron skillet before mixing with the Morton's TenderQuick. Then I coated each roast equally with the cure and placed them in vacuum sealed bags. The bags went into the fridge and I rotated the bags every day for 7 or 8 days. Each day when I rotated the roasts I snapped a quick picture of them for a type of "day by day" look at them. Initially they started out dry in the bag but over time the cure began to pull moisture from the roasts. By about Day 4 or 5 I could really tell the Tender Quick was doing it's job because I could feel that the texture of the roasts had changed as I manipulated the bags.
At the end of Day 7, I opened the bags and rinsed each roast with tap water then soaked the roasts in water overnight in the fridge. I mixed the rub as directed by the recipe and coated each roast with a generous layer of the rub.
I set up the smoker in the snowstorm on the morning of Thanksgiving and smoked the roasts to an internal temperature of 150 degrees. Removed from the heat I wrapped the pastrami in foil and allowed it to rest for a couple hours before slicing. Quite frankly, after giving a couple slices to my wife and the kids... I'm extremely lucky that I had enough to make an amazing little slider.
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