There was recipe on here a year or two ago for Italian meat sandwiches. It consisted of a roast, jar of pepperoncini, Italian seasoning, and a few other things. Was prepared in a crock pot. I fixed it a few times and loved it. I've somehow lost it. Could someone please repost if you have it? Thanks for the help!
Italian Sandwich Recipe?
- Thread starter FishEER
- Start date
Link to the last time it was asked.
http://westvirginia.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=2501&mid=155334637&sid=891&tid=155334637&style=2&Override=1
http://westvirginia.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=2501&mid=155334637&sid=891&tid=155334637&style=2&Override=1
USA # 1
GO BIG RED!
Chicago Italian Beef Sandwich
Created on the Sout Side of Chicago (no
"h" used in South), in the Italian enclaves around the now defunct
Stockyards, the classic Chicago Italian Beef Sandwich (pronounced sangwitch)
is a unique, drippy, messy variation on the French Dip Sandwich. It is
available in hundreds of joints around the city, and rarely found beyond
its environs.
The exact origin is unknown, but the
sandwich was probably created by Italian immigrants in the early 1900s
as they rose from poverty and ground meat into the middle class, when
they were able to afford beef for roasting.
Nobody knows for sure the inventor, but
the recipe was popularized by Pasquale Scala, a South Side butcher and
sausage maker. During the Depression, in the late 1920s, when food was
scarce, Scala's thinly sliced roast beef on a bun with gravy and fried
peppers took off. Today, beef sangwitches are a staple at Italian
weddings, funerals, parties, political fundraisers, and lunches "wit my
boyz". And Scala's Original supplies hundreds of restaurants and Italian Beef Stands with the raw ingredients.
Beef is made by slowly roasting lean beef on a rack above a pan filled
with seasoned beef-based stock. Some folks call it gravy, but in most
Chicago Italian households gravy is a term reserved for tomato sauces.
Others call it au jus or "juice" for short, although it is
often made with bouillon, and that is not technically au juice, which
normally refers to natural cooking juices. Let's just call it juice, OK?
Then it is sliced paper thin, soaked in
the juice for a few minutes, and layered generously, dripping wet, onto
sections of Italian bread loaves, sliced lengthwise. This crust is
typically tan, only slightly crumbly, fluffy and white in the center,
and high in gluten. According to Allen Kelson, former restaurant critic
for Chicago Magazine, and now a restaurant consultant (and one
of my editors), it is important that the bread has, what Bounty Towels
calls "wet strength". This comes from long fermentations, he explains.
The more accelerator, the worse the bread, as far as Italian beef goes.
French breads just don't cut it, he says.
The meat is topped with sauted green
bell pepper slices and giardiniera, which is usually a spicy hot blend
of chopped serrano peppers, carrots, cauliflower florets, celery,
olives, herbs, salt & pepper, packed in oil and/or vinegar. Finally
juice is spooned over the toppings, making the bread wet and chewy. Many
stands will dip the whole sandwich in juice if you ask. You can ask for
juice for dipping on the side, but then everyone will know you ain't
from around here.
and his wife Carla once wrote "To us, it's the archetypal bad sandwich:
overdone roast beef of a dubious quality, factory bread with lots of
gluten and wet strength, and jus made with plenty of dried, cheap
spices. Plus lots of filler in the giardiniera. But we love it."
Devotees, such as my South Side
Italian-American wife, say it should only be topped with Melrose
peppers, a long slender, thin-walled sweet green pepper that was brought
over from Italy and was named for the suburb of Melrose Park, home to
many immigrants. They are sauted in olive oil and served whole, with
seeds. Virtually no restaurants make it with Melrose peppers because
they are not grown commercially, but many home cooks/gardeners,
including my wife's family, cultivate this variety just for sandwiches
and "peppers & eggs" (a popular Italian American breakfast in
Chicago restaurants). Some restaurants get fancy and use colorful sauted
red peppers or yellow peppers in their Italian Beef sandwiches.
I have tried to give you a simple
recipe that is easy to make and will taste as good as restaurant
sandwiches. My recipe is triangulated from several sources. Everyone has
their own secret. Many, like Al's #1 (my fave), put the meat in the
juice, submerged half way while it roasts rather than hovering above it.
My brother-in-law, who once owned an Italian deli and makes the best
Italian beef I know, takes the time to cut slits in the meat and stud it
with slivers of fresh garlic and onion slices. He also uses a
mysterious ingredient: Fogeddaboudit. Whenever I ask him for the secret
to his Italian Beefs, he says "fogeddaboudit."
Recipe: Chicago Italian Beef Sandwiches
Preparation time: 20 minutes.
Cooking time: Allow about 2 hours to cook
and another 3 hours to firm the meat for slicing in the refrigerator if
you don't have a meat slicer. You need 90 minutes to cook a 3 pound
roast, or about 30 minutes per pound. You can cook this well in advance
and refrigerate the meat and juice and heat it up as needed. You can
even freeze it. This is a great Sunday dish because the smell of the
roasting beef and herbs fills the house. After you cook it, you need
another 30 minutes to chill it before slicing.
Ingredients
The beef
1 boneless beef roast, about 3 pounds with most of the fat trimmed off
The rub
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
The juice
6 cups of hot water
4 cubes of beef bouillon (see discussion below) *
The sandwich
10 soft, fluffy, high gluten rolls, sliced lengthwise but
hinged on one side or Italian bread loaves cut widthwise into 10
portions (Gonnella, Turano, and D'Amato are the bakers of choice in
Chicago)
3 medium sized green bell peppers
1 tablespoon olive oil, approximately
1 cup hot giardiniera
About the beef.
Top sirloin, top round, or bottom round are preferred in that order. For
tenderness, especially if you cannot cut paper thin slices. My friend David Rosengarten,
the famous cookbook author and TV chef (get his free email newsletter),
uses chuck, a fattier cut, so the meat will be more tender and
flavorful. "Luxurious" is the word he used. Problem is that you'll have
to chill the pan drippings after cooking in order to skim off the fat.
About the garlic. If you wish, omit the garlic powder and stud the roast with fresh garlic.
* About the bouillon.
I have encountered lively debate on the makeup of the juice as I
developed this recipe. Some insist you must use bouillon to be
authentic, while others use beef stock, veal stock, or a soup base, and
simmer real onions and garlic in it. The bouillon advocates have won me
over on the authenticity argument, although I must confess, soup base is
my favorite. Soup base is stock concentrated into a paste. It usually
has salt added. Click here to read more about stocks, bouillons, consomme, etc.
Serve with. A green salad with Italian dressing and French fries or tater tots. Kelson says "better to skip this and eat another sandwich."
Drinks.
The traditional drink is diet cola because most beef
stands don't have liquor licenses. Too bad, because this sandwich goes
great with beer or red wine.
Do this
1) If you wish, you can cut small slits in the surface of
the meat every inch or so and stick slivers of fresh garlic into the
meat. If you do this, leave the garlic out of the rub. Otherwise, mix
the rub in a bowl. Sprinkle it generously on the meat and massage it in.
There will be some left over. Do not discard it, we will use it in the
juice. Let the meat sit at room temp for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile,
preheat the grill or oven to 400°F. If you are cooking indoors, put a
rack just below the center of the oven.
2) Pour the water into a 9 x 13" baking
pan and heat it to a boil on the stove top. Dissolve the bouillon in
the water. It may look thin, but it will cook down and concentrate
during the roasting. Pour the remaining rub into the pan. Place a rack
on top of the pan. Place the roast on top of the rack above the juice.
Roast at 400°F until interior temperature is about 130°F for medium
rare, about 30 minutes per pound (exact time will depend on the
cut of meat, its thickness, and how well calibrated your oven is). This
may seem long, but you are cooking over water and that slows things
down. The temp will rise about 5°F more as it rests. Don't worry if
there are people who won't eat medium-rare meat. The meat will cook
further in step 5, and you can just leave theirs in the juice until it
turns to leather if that's what they want. If you use a rotisserie on
your grill, you can cut the cooking time in half because the spear and
the forks holding it in place will conduct heat into the interior.
Beware. This
recipe is designed for a 9 x 13" baking pan. If you use a larger pan,
the water may evaporate and the juice will burn. If you have to use a
larger pan, add more water. Regardless of pan size, keep an eye on the
pan to make sure it doesn't dry out during cooking. Add more water if
necessary.
Quick and easy shortcut.
My wife makes a darn tasty Italian Beef Sangwitch by simply dusting the
meat with unmeasured herbs, garlic, salt, pepper, and oregano, and then
she browns it on all sides in a frying pan with some olive oil. She
then deglazes the pan and that's her gravy. It goes in a pan under the
meat in the oven during roasting. I love it (but not as much as mine -
hope she doesn't read this).
3) While the meat is roasting (mmmmm,
smells sooooo good), cut the bell peppers in half and remove the stems
and seeds. Rinse, and cut into 1/4" strips. Cook the peppers in a frying
pan over a medium high heat with enough olive oil to coat the bottom,
about 1 tablespoon. When they are getting limp and the skins begin to
brown, about 15 minutes, they are done. Set aside at room temp.
4) Remove the roast and the juice pan.
Take the meat off the rack and remove the rack. Pour off the juice, put
the meat back in the pan, and place it in the coldest part of the
refrigerator. Let it cool for a few hours, long enough for the meat to
firm up. This will make slicing easier. Chill the juice, too, in a
separate container. Slice the meat against the grain as thin as humanly
possible, preferably with a meat slicer. My wife remembers that her
family would cook the roast and take it to the butcher to slice on his
machine. That's a good strategy if you don't have a meat slicer but it
may be against your local health codes. If you don't have a slicer, use a
thin blade and draw it along the meat. If you try to cut downor saw
through the crust you will be cutting it too thick.
5) Taste the juice. If you want you can thin it
with more water, or make it richer by cooking it down on top of the
stove. In Chicago beef stands it is rich, but not too concentrated. Then
turn the heat to a gentle simmer. Soak the meat in the juice for about 1
minute at a low simmer. That's all. That warms the meat and makes it
very wet. You can't leave the meat in the juice for more than 10 minutes
or else it starts to curl up, squeezes out its natural moisture, and
toughens. If you go to a beef stand and the meat is really curly, they
have committed a mortal sin. At Mr. Beef, for example, I watched them
take a handful of cooked beef and dump it into the juice every time they
took out enough for a sandwich. This also enriches the juice with meat
protein and seasoning from the crust.
6) To assemble the sandwich, start by
spooning some juice directly onto the bun. Get it wet. Then lay on the
beef generously. Spoon on more juice (don't burn your hand). Top it with
bell pepper and, if you wish, giardiniera. If you want it "wet", dip
the whole shootin' match in juice. Be sure to have plenty of napkins on
hand.
Variations on the theme
Most Italian beef joints offer a "combo," which also has a grilled
Italian sausage nestled in with the beef (shown being made at Al's in a
photo at right). These are thick, uncured, coarsely ground pork sausages
in natural casings, flavored with fennel, paprika, black pepper, red or
green bell peppers, onions, garlic, parsley, and crushed red chili
peppers for some heat. Italian sausages are made in your choice of hot,
medium, or mild (sometimes called sweet).
The "Cheef": Cover it
with shredded mozzarella and/or provolone, broil for a few minutes, and
you have a "cheesy beef" or "cheef". Not many stands offer this mutant
strain.
With "Gravy": An even rarer and more heretical variant, topped with marinara.
The "Soaker": Just dip
the bread in the juice and you have the classic laborer's lunch, a
soaker, a.k.a. "sugo pane", or gravy bread. Sugo pane is also commonly
made with marinara sauce.
