Jesse's Guide to the Ultimate Chicago Regional Sandwich: The Italian Beef

 

The Italian Beef Sandwich

Behold, in all its greasy glory, the Chicago Italian beef sandwich!  I grew up eating these.  It never occurred to me for a minute that it was a Chicago thing.  See, I was born in North Carolina, but I only lived there till I was 10, and I was still in the burgers-and-nuggets stage of my culinary development (I thought nachos were exotic).  Fatefully, I moved to Illinois, and this ridiculous, amazing sandwich captured my attention.  It was a staple at hot dog stands.  Often, these places wouldn't even have their name on the sign.  They'd just say 'Vienna Beef-Brats-Italian Beef'.  

So what is it?  Is it actually Italian?  Does it properly come with cheese?  The answers to these questions are 'a braised, shredded beef sandwich served bread saturated with with the cooking juices and a special blend of pickled vegetables,' 'no, not really,' and 'absolutely not, get out of here with that.'

A brief note on the cheese thing: I like cheese.  I LOVE cheese.  My personal top five cheeses are Beaufort, Epoisses, Brillat-Savarin, Parmigiano Reggiano di Vacche Rosse, and Valencay.  Cheese is amazing.  But Americans put too much cheese on too many things.  Tacos don't need it.  A well-made hamburger doesn't need it.  A club sandwich doesn't need it.  Chilli doesn't need it.  Scrambled eggs ABSOLUTELY don't need it.  You can hide a lot of flaws behind cheese.  So, to the Chicago faithful in my circle that love cheese on Italian beef (I'm looking at you, Jax, and you too, Maggie Blackout and Jimmy Chicago), I'm calling you out.  Make your I.B. perfectly, and you don't need to ride the white horse.  (Provolone.  The white horse in this case is provolone.)

So anyway, off my soapbox, let's get into this.  The Italian beef starts out as a piece of braising beef, generally round.  It is cooked within an inch of its life (well, usually, more on this later), shredded (or sliced, more on this later), and served on a toasted hoagie roll, which is liberally doused with the beef's cooking liquid.  Then, it is topped with giardiniera, which is a solidly Italian-American blend of different pickled vegetables.

Let's go through the components one by one:

The Beef:  Round is what is traditional, but there is some flexibility.  There are two schools of thought on this, and they are a parallel to the two schools of thought on corned beef for a reuben.  The question is this: do you want to cook it until it falls apart, but has great mouthfeel, or do you want to deliberately undercook it, so you can slice it thin on a deli slicer?  Obviously, the former is the preferred method, but the latter has its adherents.  One advantage of the cook-it-to-death style (apart from obviously improved taste and texture) is that you aren't limited to a cut you can meaningfully slice.  I couldn't find round in the grocery!  What the hell?  Are people just grinding all the round now?  Weird.  Anyway, they had a nice, marbled piece of chuck, and that was better, from where I'm sitting.

The Bread: Okay, so this is counterintuitive.  The normal school of thought on bread is that bread in a sandwich should maintain structural integrity.  The more intense the toppings, the more heavy lifting the bread has to do.  In this case, however, the bread is specifically built to fail.  The bread's job is to be dissolving into a greasy, juicy, savory quasi-pudding at the exact moment of consumption.  You want just enough structure to carry the sloppy mess of beef and giardiniera to your face, and then practically dissolve on the palate.  In this case, the ideal choice is a hoagie roll, just a little sturdier than a standard hot dog bun.  That's on the softer end of what's acceptable.  On the firm end are those crappy 'french rolls' your local crappy supermarket sells, instead of real baguettes.  You know, the ones that are shaped like a baguette, but lack the firm texture and real crust of a true French baguette?  Yeah, those.  Nothing tougher.  Under no circumstances should you attempt an Italian beef on any bread that would actually qualify as a real baguette.  You'll just make the toppings shoot out the sides when you bite down...

The Giardiniera: You can buy it in gallon jars online.  There's nothing wrong with that.  It's just a blend of carrots, cauliflower, bell pepper, and celery, along with (sometimes) sliced onion and hot peppers.  Some varieties are in a straight pickle (usually flavored with fennel), while some brands have olive oil added.  If you want to just use the store-bought stuff, go for it, no one's gonna judge you.  However, I have a pretty good recipe for a quick-and-easy giardiniera below, you should give it a go.

The Cheese: Should not be used in this recipe.

The Broth: This, this is the soul of a real Italian beef.  If it's made right, it should be kind of hard to tell where the beef ends and the broth begins.  The broth and the beef are two separate components and the same component, at the same time.  Follow along, and I'll tell you exactly what to do.

The Recipe:

Note: This recipe doesn't have exact amounts.  That's because a lot of it depends on how big your piece of beef is, and how big your pan is.  You'll need enough broth to cover your beef about 80 percent with water, and how much water you use defines the whole rest of the recipe.  Don't be intimidated, though, it's not an exact science.  There are two things you need to do to make it good.  1: Get the salt right.  This isn't hard to do.  Just make sure the broth tastes like good soup, and then re-season after it's cooked.  2: Don't undercook it.  This is key.  It's a moist-heat cook, and you want it to fall apart, so overcooking isn't much of an issue.  Undercooked, however, it will be tough and dry.  Don't start this recipe at 3pm unless you plan on serving it the following day.  Start it in the morning, and give it time to relax.

Anyway, here's what you need:

A Dutch oven (or other lidded, oven-safe pot), a saucepot, and an oven.

3-4# beef round (if you wanna be traditional) or chuck (if your store inexplicably doesn't have round, or you just like a fattier cut) roast 
Pepperoncini peppers (those pickled peppers Papa John's gives you with every pizza), like 6 per pound
Fresh thyme, a few sprigs
Dried Oregano (I know, I know, this is one of those times you actually want the fake cheap shit)
Garlic Cloves, peeled (say, 6 per pound)
Bay Leaves, 2 per pound
Black Pepper
Beef Base (same deal as dried oregano, it's what's traditional!)
Marmite (more on this later)

Here's what you do:

Preheat the oven to 300-325F

Put the beef in the dutch oven.  Pour water in to the dutch oven until you know how many quarts/liters/whatever it takes to come 80-85% of the way towards covering the beef.  That amount is going to be your broth volume.  Discard water, and dry off beef and dutch oven with paper towels.

Make the broth: in a saucepot, put the amount of water we agreed on in the previous step.  Bring it to a simmer.  Add beef base and Marmite, in a ratio of about 60/40, until the water is as well-seasoned as a good French onion soup.  

Wait, Marmite?  That nasty stuff the British put on their toast??

Yeah, that stuff.  The Australians call it Vegemite.  (It's possible there's a difference, but I don't know what it is.)  Now, I'd be lying if I said this wasn't a hail Mary.  I just plain ran out of beef base, and then discovered that I was COMPLETELY out of salt.  I know, that's insane, right?  I had just done some meat-curing project the evening before, and burned myself out of salt, and forgot to get more.  I was under the gun, time-wise, so I started frantically looking for other salty things.  I briefly considered soy sauce, but that would have radically changed the flavor profile.  Finally, I hit on the Marmite, and put a little dab in a spoon of the broth I was working with, and it made it better.  It gave a big hit of umami to the broth that is now officially part of my Italian beef kung fu.

Anyway, let's get back into it.

Once you've got your highly seasoned umami-beef-whatever-the-hell-Marmite-is broth going, throw in your garlic cloves, pepperoncini peppers, thyme, bay leaves, and oregano and pepper to taste.  Start slow with the spices, and see how they bloom.  You can always add a little more after it all simmers a bit.  Let it simmer for a few minutes while you sear your beef.

To sear the beef, heat your dutch oven up and slick it with a little oil.  Get it nice and hot, and sear every surface of the beef to a nice, deep brown.  (It doesn't need to be perfect, it just gives a nice deep quality to the broth.)  Once the beef is nicely seared, drop the heat down low, and add your broth.  Bring the whole thing to a nice simmer, cover it, and toss it in the oven.

As far as cook time, it will take as long as it has to.  At 325, my 3.5# piece of chuck took about 4 hours, but it really could have used another 45'.  If I could do it again, I'd give it 6-7 hours at 300, or even overnight at 250.  Low and slow is the way to go.  If you've got a crock-pot big enough to handle this, even that would work.  

Keep an eye on the water level.  You may need to add a bit as the beef cooks, if it starts to reduce.  (Hint: boil the water first, and you won't slow the cooking process down when you do this.)  Also, it's a good idea to flip the beef about halfway, just so the top doesn't dry out, but this isn't totally necessary, so if you want to cook this overnight, you don't need to wake up at 4am to flip it.

You'll know when it's done when the beef shreds easily.  It will be relatively soft on the palate, like beef stew that's gone a little too long.  Here's how it looks when it's almost all-the-way cooked.

See how it's starting to pull apart by the connective tissue?  It's almost there.  You should be able to easily slide a carving fork out of the meat without lifting it from the broth at all.  When it's finally done, just go in there with a pair of tongs and wreck it.  Pick the bay leaves and thyme stems (and any unpalatably large pieces of gristle) out as you go, but the peppers and garlic, they just get mixed in with the meat.  The garlic will practically dissolve.  Here's how it looks when it's done.

Isn't that a thing of greasy-ass beauty?  At this point, you check the seasoning (ideally with salt, at this point, and don't be like me and use the last of your expensive Fleur de Sel because you were too stupid to keep up with inventory), and you're ready to serve.  Under no circumstances should the broth be degreased.

To Serve: Split and toast your rolls.  Using a slotted spoon, full the buns with beef.  (It will bring a lot of juice with it.)  Resist the temptatiopn to overfill, or it will impossible to eat, instead of just difficult.  Add a sprinkling of giardiniera mix, and serve each sandwich with a big ramekin of the juice for dipping.  (See photo at the top.)

*Alternate Strategy: You can always just ladle juice over the sandwich to the point of saturation, and then eat it with a fork.  The drunker you are, the better an idea this is.

How to Make Good Giardiniera:

Okay, this is for a hot giardiniera.  The only difference between plain and hot is the inclusion of actual chilli peppers, instead of just bell peppers.  If you don't like heat, it's easy to adjust, and no less authentic.

Ingredients
1 medium head cauliflower, cut into florets
4 medium carrots (not baby carrots, not horse carrots), peeled and bias-sliced about a quarter inch thick
1 bell pepper (red is good, but yellow or orange are fine, too), pith removed, sliced 1/4" thick
2 Anaheim peppers (or NM green chiles), sliced 1/4" thick, with large pieces of pith removed
1 quart distilled vinegar
1 pint water
3 T kosher salt
2 T granulated sugar
2 fresh bay leaves, crushed in your hand
1 T toasted fennel seeds, crushed or minced (NOT ground, you can crush them with the edge of a heavy knife or the base of a sauce pan)
Olive Oil as needed (optional)

Method:
Make the brine (bring vinegar, water, salt, sugar, and bay leaves to a simmer).  [Fennel is optional at this point, see below.]
Taking care not to let it come to a full boil, add the carrots and cauliflower and cook 3 minutes.
Add the celery and the peppers and let them simmer for another 2-3 minutes.  
All the vegetables should have retained some crispness.

For a lower-fat giardiniera: Add the fennel when cooking the brine.  Remove the vegetables from the brine with a slotted spoon and let veg and liquid cool to room temperature.  Recombine and chill.

For the higher-fat, olive-oil rich giardiniera, drain the vegetables and let cool slightly.  Then, toss with a little of the brine, some nice olive oil, and the cracked fennel seeds, like you're dressing a salad.

The lower-fat version will keep longer, but the higher fat version tastes a little more refined.  It's all about whether you are avoiding oil, but if you are, maybe the Italian Beef isn't for you...

Have fun with this one, y'all!  -JS