The Pastrami Knish Has Landed

Pastrami?! She hardly knew me!

Starting today, Malt & Mold will be carrying the Pastrami Knish, along side Spinach & Roasted Garlic, Kasha, Vanilla Bean Cheese and Chocolate Hazelnut Cheese. I supplied mini versions of potato & caramelized onion, broccoli cheddar and the pastrami to Malt & Mold for their Grand Opening this past weekend, and according to reports, 9/10 eaters went straight for the meaty bites.

I must say, this is the quickest a knish went from experimental mode to the sale floor. Thanks to Kevin @ Malt & Mold for allowing his customers to be Knishery NYC's guinea pigs!

Malt & Mold to offer...FREE KNISHES?!

For a brief period in the space-time continuum, there will be TWO things in life that are free: love & knishes.

This coming Saturday, June 16th, from noon to 8pm, Malt & Mold will be holding their official Grand Opening, as they just got their liquor license and are now selling beer on tap via growlers and the like.

To help celebrate, Knishery NYC is giving away a limited number of mini-knishes in three flavors: potato-onion, broccoli & cheddar and a new flavor: Pastrami Coriander. There is only a limited number of knishes, so first come first served.

Pastrami Notes:
I actually only had my first pastrami knish a year or so ago, at a Laura Silver knish lecture. It was very...unimpressive. It was smooth mashed potato studded with a few slivers of thin sliced pastrami, shaped like a cheese log, lightly breaded in something crunchy and fried, very similar to a potato croquette from a mid-western high school prom, if Woody Allen was the principal. Bleah.

So I went to that counter at Katz's that always seems underutilized and ordered myself a few pounds of the UNCUT stuff. That's right, a big ol' block of pure pastrami. At home, I cut the side of blackened, fatty meat into batons a.k.a. thick stubby matchsticks. When dealing with something like bacon in French cooking, this shape gives a huge bang for the meaty-flavor buck. I mixed it in generously to my standard potato-onion mix, and loved how the outside coating of the pastrami started to mix in with the filling. The main spice in it is coriander, so I took some ground Berber coriander from my spice rack and amped it up -- the coriander is like a megaphone for the pastrami, and it is not messin' around.

It's a work in progress, but definitely shows promise out of the gate.