Authentic Chicago Italian Beef Sandwich Recipe, History, & Restaurant Ratings
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Chicago Italian Beef Sandwich Outdoors or In
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 (which is not a sex act). 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&.
Italian 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 sautéd green bell pepper slices and giardiniera. The most popular
commercial brand, Dell'Alpe, is simply a
condiment of hot pickles serrano peppers, celery,
green olives and spices packed in oil. . Finally beef 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.
Kelson 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 Sout 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 sautéd 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 sautéd red peppers or yellow peppers in their Italian Beef sandwiches.
Traditionally it is cooked indoors but you can do it on the grill or smoker and amp it up a notch. This dish is especially well-suited for the rotisserie. You can even cook the whole thing a day or so in advance and serve it from a slow cooker making it perfect for game day.
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 named Fogeddaboudit. Whenever I ask him for the secret to his Italian Beefs, he says &fogeddaboudit.&
Recipe: Chicago Italian Beef Sandwiches
Yield: Makes about 10 sandwiches with about 1/4 pounds of meat each.
Preparation time: 20 minutes.
Cooking time: For a 3 pound roast 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. Actual time depends on the thickness not the weight, but we use weight as a rule of thumb. 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. You can cook this a day or two in advance and refrigerate the meat and juice and heat it up as needed and that's a good strategy. You can even freeze it.
Ingredients
1 boneless beef roast (sirloin or round), about 3 pounds with most of the fat trimmed off
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
6 cups of hot water
4 cubes of beef bouillon (yes, bouillon, see the explanation 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
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 , 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 . Feel free to substitute soup base or, best of all, make your own stock.
Serve with. A green salad with Italian dressing and French fries or tater tots. Kelson says &better to skip this and eat another sandwich.&
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.
1) If you wish, you can cut stab the surface of the meat every inch or so and stick slivers of fresh garlic into the meat as does my brother-in-law. If you do this, leave the garlic out of the rub. Otherwise, mix the rub in a bowl. Coat the meat lightly with vegetable oil to help the rub stick, 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.
If you are cooking indoors, put a rack just below the center of the oven. If you are cooking outdoors use a
or a smoker and get it the oven or the indirect side up to about 325°F. Normally we tell you to cook roasts at a much lower temperature to make them tender, but this is a tough cut to begin with and slicing it thin effectively makes it easier to chew. Then it is dunked in hot gravy, which takes it up to the well-done range, so it doesn't matter what temp you cook it at to begin with.
2) Pour the water into a 9 x 13& baking pan and heat it to a boil on the direct heat side of the grill, on the side burner, or 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. If you are using the rotisserie, you can skip the rack, just locate the pan below the meat. Roast indoors at 325&F until interior temperature is about 130&F for medium rare, about 40 minutes per pound (exact time will depend on the cut of meat, its thickness, and how well calibrated your cooker 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.
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 and I 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
Da Combo. 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).
Da 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.
Wit Gravy. An even rarer and more heretical variant, topped with marinara.
Da 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.
This page was revised 3/1/2010
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You do not need permission to link to this website.Homemade beef stew is a dish that will serve you well through long winters and family visits and other small moments of need.
or , homemade beef stew is one of those dishes that is just good to have in your back pocket. It's a dish that will serve you well through long winters and family visits and other small moments of need. Making one isn't hard and will surely nourish you through several meals. Here's my tried-and-true method for making a very good beef stew.
There are a few non-negotiable steps to making a beef stew. First, you must sear the meat. Truly sear. Getting the sides brown isn't the same. You need to lay the cubes in a hot pan and let them sizzle for a good five minutes before nudging them. When the bottoms have a dark crust and come away easily from the pan, then you can move on with the other sides.
A "fond," a.k.a. sticky dark glaze, will start to form on the bottom of the pan as you continue searing your meat in batches. This fond is the source of the stew's great magic. It's full of caramelly, roasty, and nutty flavors that will make you swoon when you taste the final dish.
The second non-negotiable is time. Chuck meat is a hard working muscle and it takes a good long stretch of cooking for it to become tender. Rush things too quickly and your beef will be tough and chewy. Cook it low and slow for at least two hours, and fork-tender meat will be your reward.
There are also a few aspects to my version of beef stew that you might find controversial. I use chicken stock instead of beef stock, and have done so ever since an article of Cook's Illustrated gave me permission years ago. I always found that beef stock gave soups and stews an oddly tinny flavor, and the good folks at Cook's Illustrated agreed with me. Unless you actually make your own beef stock (a whole different beast from the canned variety), I recommend using chicken stock. T I bet you'll like it.
I also wait to add my potatoes and carrots until halfway through cooking. There is nothing I hate more than mushy carrots, so I try to time their perfect moment of doneness with the stew meat.
For seasonings, I like Worcestershire sauce, thyme, and a good red wine. I've also used a dark beer in place of the wine and been very happy with the results. You can certainly play with your own favorite seasonings, but I would recommend keeping them fairly simple. If you've seared your meat well and cooked it long enough, the stew can really stand on its own without much else.
I know this is one version of beef stew, though I'll confess that I think it's a particularly good one. How do you like to make your stew? What do you do differently?
How to Make a Very Good Beef Stew
Serves 6-8
What You Need
Ingredients
3-4 pounds beef chuck roast
1-3 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
2 medium onions, diced
3 celery stalks, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons Worcestershire, divided
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup red wine or amber beer, plus extra to finish
3 sprigs fresh thyme or 2 teaspoons dried
1 bay leaf
4 cups chicken stock
3 carrots, diced
pounds red bliss potatoes, cubed
1 cup frozen peas
Salt and pepper
A large Dutch oven or soup pot
Sturdy wooden spoon
Instructions
Cube the beef. Trim off any large pieces of fat from the outside of the roast, then cut it into small bite-sized cubes. This is most easily done if you cut the roast into slices, each slice into strips, and then the strips into cubes. Use a sharp knife and don't forget to keep your fingers out of the way and your thumb tucked in as you're slicing through the meat.
Warm the pot and begin searing the meat. Set a large Dutch oven or soup pot over medium-high heat and film the bottom with oil. When hot enough that a drop of water sizzles off the surface, work in batches to sear the beef. Add a single layer of beef cubes to the pan, being careful not to crowd the cubes too closely, and sprinkle them generously with salt and pepper.
Continue searing all the meat. Let the cubes of beef cook undisturbed for 4-5 minutes, until the undersides develop a dark brown crust and come away easily from the pan. Toss and continue searing on all sides, another 4-5 minutes. Transfer the seared meat to a clean bowl and continue searing the remaining meat in batches. Add another teaspoon or two of oil between batches if the pan looks dry.
Watch for the "fond," a.k.a. sticky dark glaze, to form: A sticky dark glaze will start to form on the bottom of the pan. This is technically called "the fond," and it is a major source of deep, caramelized flavor in your stew. We'll get back to it in a few more steps. However, if at any time you think the crust smells smoky or is starting to burn, dissolve it with a few tablespoons of water and pour over the seared beef.
Cook the vegetables. Once all the meat has been seared and transfered out of the pan, cook the vegetables. Reduce the heat to medium and warm another teaspoon of oil. Add the onions and celery, and cook until the onions are softened and translucent, 8-10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, 30 seconds. Stir in the tomato paste, salt, and one tablespoons of the Worcestershire sauce to coat.
Add the flour. Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables. Stir until there is no more visible flour and the veggies look slightly mushy from the flour coating.
Deglaze the pan with the wine. Raise the heat back up to medium-high and pour in the wine. The wine should immediately start bubbling and steaming. Scrape the sticky fond from t the wine will help it to dissolve. Continue scraping and stirring until the wine has reduced and thicken slightly.
Return the meat to the pan and add the broth. Return the seared meat to the pan and add the whole thyme sprigs, the bay leaf, and the broth. Stir to combine.
Cover and cook for 1 1/2 hours. Bring the broth to a simmer, then reduce the heat to low. Cover the pot and simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Stir occasionally. Make sure the stew stays at a very low simmer. (Alternatively, see Additional Notes for oven version.)
Add the potatoes and carrots. Add the potatoes and carrots to the stew. Cover the pot again and continue cooking for another 45-60 minutes. When done, the meat should be tender enough to flake apart with a fork and the potatoes cooked through. If not, re-cover and cook in additional 15 minute increments until cooked.
Add the peas and remaining seasonings. Stir the frozen peas into the stew. Add the remaining tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce and a splash of red wine. Remove the thyme stems and bay leaf. Taste and add extra salt, pepper, or other seasonings as you see fit. The stew can be served right away, refrigerated for up to a week, or frozen for up to three months.
Additional Notes:
Cooking Beef Stew in the Oven: Preheat the oven to 300°F. Once the broth has been added, bring the stew to a simmer, cover, and cook in the oven. Cooking times are the same.
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