Italian beef - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

An Italian beef is a sandwich

Sandwich

A sandwich is a food item, typically consisting of two or more slices of :bread with one or more fillings between them, or one slice of bread with a topping or toppings, commonly called an open sandwich. Sandwiches are a widely popular type of lunch food, typically taken to work or school, or...

of thin slices of seasoned roast beef

Roast beef

Roast beef is a dish of beef which is roasted in an oven. Essentially prepared as a main meal, the leftovers can be and are often served within sandwiches and sometimes is used to make hash...

, dripping with meat juices, on a dense, long Italian-style roll, believed to have originated in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, where its history dates back at least to the 1930s. The bread itself is often dipped (or double-dipped) into the juices the meat is cooked in, and the sandwich is typically topped off with Chicago-style giardiniera

Giardiniera

Giardiniera is an Italian or Italian-American relish of pickled vegetables in vinegar or oil.-Varieties and uses:Italian giardiniera is also called "sotto aceti", which means "under vinegar", a common term for pickled foods...

(called "hot") or sauteed, green Italian sweet pepper

Italian sweet pepper

The Italian sweet pepper is a variety of the species Capsicum annuum, like bell peppers and chilli peppers.It has the appearance of a large chilli pepper but the mild taste of sweet peppers such as the bell pepper....

s (called "sweet").

Italian beef sandwiches can be found at most hot dog

Chicago-style hot dog

A Chicago-style hot dog, or Chicago Dog, is a steamed or water-simmered all-beef frankfurter on a poppy seed bun, originating from the city of Chicago, Illinois...

stands and small Italian-American restaurants throughout the city of Chicago and its suburbs. They are difficult to find outside of Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

. However, Chicago expatriates have opened restaurants across the country serving Italian beef, Chicago-style hot dog

Chicago-style hot dog

A Chicago-style hot dog, or Chicago Dog, is a steamed or water-simmered all-beef frankfurter on a poppy seed bun, originating from the city of Chicago, Illinois...

s, and other foods original to the Chicago area.

Preparation

Italian beef is made using cuts of beef from the sirloin butt or the top/bottom round wet-roasted

Roasting

Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat, whether an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting usually causes caramelization or Maillard browning of the surface of the food, which is considered by some as a flavor enhancement. Roasting uses more indirect, diffused heat , and is...

in broth

Broth

Broth is a liquid food preparation, typically consisting of either water or an already flavored stock, in which bones, meat, fish, cereal grains, or vegetables have been simmered. Broth is used as a basis for other edible liquids such as soup, gravy, or sauce. It can be eaten alone or with garnish...

with garlic, oregano and spices until medium rare

Medium Rare

The Medium is Singapore's first full-length English language film. It was released in local cinemas in late 1991 and produced by Singaporean Errol Pang. It was initially supposed to be directed by a Singaporean, Tony Yeow, then by an American, Stan Barret, and finally by Arthur Smith, who was...

or medium. The roast is then cooled, shaved using a deli slicer, and then reintroduced to its reheated beef broth. The beef then sits in the broth, perhaps for hours. Once a sandwich is ordered, the beef is then drawn from the broth and placed directly on the bread. Because the meat is served dripping wet it is necessary to use a chewy bread, as a softer bread would disintegrate. The typical bread used is long, Italian style loaves without seeds sliced from six to eight inches in length. Italian beef can also be shredded instead of sliced.

Many retailers purchase pre-seasoned, pre-cooked, and pre-sliced Italian beef with separate cooking broth ("au jus"), and then heat and serve, while the most acclaimed Chicago beef places typically prepare the beef on their own premises according to their own recipes. Some produce their own homemade giardiniera

Giardiniera

as well.

Origins

Origins of the sandwich are disputed, but one early vendor, Al's No. 1 Italian Beef, opened its first stand in 1938.

One story has it that the Italian Beef sandwich was started by Italian immigrants who worked for the old Union Stock Yards

Union Stock Yards

The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards, was the meat packing district in Chicago for over a century starting in 1865. The district was operated by a group of railroad companies that acquired swampland, and turned it to a centralized processing area...

. They often would bring home some of the tougher, less desirable cuts of beef sold by the company. To make the meat more palatable, it was slow-roasted to make it more tender, then slow-simmered in a spicy broth for flavor. Both the roasting and the broth used Italian-style spices and herbs. The meat was then thinly sliced across the grain and stuffed into fresh Italian bread.

According to Scala's Original Beef and Sausage Company (formed in 1925), this meal was originally introduced at weddings and banquets where the meat was sliced thinly so there would be enough to feed all the guests. It rapidly grew in popularity and eventually became Chicago's most famous ethnic food: the original Italian beef sandwich.

By 1954, a local restaurant was advertising its "Pizza, Spaghetti, Ravioli, [and] Italian Beef Sandwiches" in the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...

.

In 2008, Man v. Food
Man v. Food
Man v. Food is an American food reality television series. It premiered on December 3, 2008, on the Travel Channel. The program is hosted by actor and food enthusiast Adam Richman. In each episode, Richman explores the "big food" offerings of a different American city before facing off against a...

host Adam Richman traveled to Al's Beef, where Al's nephew Chris Pacelli coined the phrase "Da Italian Stance" for the proper form for eating an Italian beef sandwich.

Variations

There are varying degrees of juiciness, depending on taste. Nomenclature varies from stand to stand, but wet or dipped means the bread is quickly dunked in the juice; juicy even wetter; and soaked is dripping wet.

Most Chicago beef joints also offer a "combo," adding a grilled Italian sausage

Italian sausage

In the United States, Italian sausage most often refers to a style of pork sausage noted for being seasoned with fennel and/or anise as the primary seasoning...

to the sandwich. Different eateries offer hot or mild sausage, or both.

Typical beef orders are:

Hot dipped: Italian beef on gravy-wetted bread and giardiniera.
Hot dipped combo: Italian beef and sausage on gravy-wetted bread with giardiniera.
Sweet dry: Italian beef placed on dry bread, topped with sweet peppers.
Gravy bread: meatless Italian bread soaked in the juice of Italian beef, often served with peppers or giardiniera. Also known in some places as "Soakers" or "Juice-ons".
Cheesy beef or cheef: Italian beef with cheese
Cheese
Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....

(Provolone
Provolone
Provolone is an Italian cheese that originated in Southern Italy, where it is still produced in various shapes as in 10 to 15 cm long pear, sausage, or cone shapes. A variant of Provolone is also produced in North America and Japan...

, Mozzarella
Mozzarella
Mozzarella is an Italian Traditional Speciality Guaranteed food product. The term is used for several kinds of Italian cheeses that are made using spinning and then cutting :...

or, rarely, Cheddar
Cheddar cheese
Cheddar cheese is a relatively hard, yellow to off-white, and sometimes sharp-tasting cheese, produced in several countries around the world. It has its origins in the English village of Cheddar in Somerset....

); not all stands offer this.
Cheesy beef on garlic: Italian beef with cheese (Provolone, Mozzarella or, rarely, Cheddar) and the bread being pre-cooked and seasoned like traditional garlic bread; not all stands offer this.

Some order the "triple double," which consists of double cheese, double sausage and double beef. Other even less common variations include substituting Italian bread with a large croissant

Croissant

A croissant is a buttery flaky pastry named for its distinctive crescent shape. It is also sometimes called a crescent, from the French word for "crescent". Croissants are made of a leavened variant of puff pastry...

or topping with marinara sauce

Marinara Sauce

Marinara sauce is a southern Italian tomato sauce usually made with tomatoes, garlic, herbs , and onion. However, there are many variations. Some of these include the addition of capers, olives, anchovies, and/or spices....

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Preparation

Origins

Variations

See also

External links