From Chef's Table · 2015- · Reconstructed
Short Rib Pastrami Suya
Serve when
Serve when Kwame Onwuachi describes building Tatiana's menu around the flavors of his own upbringing — Nigerian suya spice rubbed onto a Jewish deli's pastrami technique.
In the series
Volume 7
- S7E2 · ~00:27:10 Kwame Onwuachi prepares short rib pastrami crusted in suya spice at Tatiana, explaining the dish as a deliberate collision between West African spice and New York Jewish deli tradition
In the series
Onwuachi built Tatiana as an argument that his own upbringing — Nigerian and Jamaican food traded across a Bronx apartment building full of other immigrant families, all of it filtered through New York's deli culture — deserved a fine-dining stage. This dish is that argument made literal: suya spice, a distinctly West African street-food seasoning, rubbed onto a cut cured and smoked the way a Jewish deli cures pastrami.
Ingredients
- For the cure:
- For the suya spice rub:
- For the pastrami crust:
Method
- Combine the salt, sugar, and curing salt if using, and rub it all over the short rib. Refrigerate, turning daily, for 5 to 7 days to cure through.
- Rinse the cure off and pat the meat dry.
- Mix the ground peanuts, cayenne, paprika, ginger, garlic powder, onion powder, and cloves into a suya spice blend, and rub it generously over the cured meat.
- Press the cracked pepper and coriander into the surface as a final crust layer.
- Smoke the short rib low and slow, around 225°F (107°C), until it reaches an internal temperature of about 195°F (90°C) and is fork-tender, roughly 5 to 6 hours.
- Rest, then slice thin against the grain and serve hot.
Substitutions
- Ground roasted peanuts: Suya spice mixes (yaji) are sold ready-made at West African grocers and online — using one directly skips step 3's peanut grinding and gets a more authentic blend than assembling it from a Western pantry.
- A smoker: A charcoal grill set up for indirect heat, with a few soaked wood chunks added for smoke, gets you most of the way there.