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The Chicago-style Italian Beef Sandwich
Jan. 29th, 2015 01:08 pmI mentioned before how I'm a fan of meat sandwiches; this is one of the few to rival a good barbecue sandwich.
Take a beef roast/brisket, rub with Italian seasoning, and slow-roast, basting with the drippings. After it's roasted to the point of being tender, slice and continue to simmer the slices in its own juices, which by this point should be heavily flavored with the Italian seasonings. Then serve on a thick, heavy roll that can stand up to the juices; you don't want one that will fall apart when it's soaked. Peppers are optional.
Like barbecue, this dish was supposedly developed to take advantage of tough cuts of meat that need a lot of cooking/tenderizing to be good. The end result, done well, is something like a French Dip sandwich - but the Italian seasonings give it a very different flavor, with a notable kick... especially if you serve with the peppers.
(On a side note, at least for me, it's been a lot harder to find a good French Dip sandwich in the last 5-10 years. The meat's generally been a lot fattier, very greasy and even slightly rancid on occasion. Anyone else seeing this?)
Take a beef roast/brisket, rub with Italian seasoning, and slow-roast, basting with the drippings. After it's roasted to the point of being tender, slice and continue to simmer the slices in its own juices, which by this point should be heavily flavored with the Italian seasonings. Then serve on a thick, heavy roll that can stand up to the juices; you don't want one that will fall apart when it's soaked. Peppers are optional.
Like barbecue, this dish was supposedly developed to take advantage of tough cuts of meat that need a lot of cooking/tenderizing to be good. The end result, done well, is something like a French Dip sandwich - but the Italian seasonings give it a very different flavor, with a notable kick... especially if you serve with the peppers.
(On a side note, at least for me, it's been a lot harder to find a good French Dip sandwich in the last 5-10 years. The meat's generally been a lot fattier, very greasy and even slightly rancid on occasion. Anyone else seeing this?)
