Recipe: Italian Beef Sandwiches

Yield: Makes about 10 sandwiches with about 1/4 pounds of meat each.

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 (i prefer to use top round)

The rub
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

The juice
6 cups of hot water (my preference is 3 cups water 3 cups beef broth)
4 cubes of bouillon

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 butt, top round roast, or bottom round roast are preferred in that order. Scala’s is the purveyor of choice in Chicago. For authenticity, do not use a fatty roast like the chuck or an expensive cut like the loin. For tenderness, especially if you cannot cut paper thin slices, try a chuck roast.Chuck is a fattier cut, so the meat will be more tender and flavorful. “Luxurious” is the word used. Problem is that you’ll have to chill the pan drippings after cooking in order to skim off the fat.

About the garlic. 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.

Serve with. A green salad with Italian dressing and French fries or tater tots.

Note. Kelson says “better to skip this and eat another sandwich.”

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 × 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 140°F for medium rare, about 30 minutes per pound. 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 × 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 or broth if necessary.

Quick and easy shortcut. simply dusting the meat with unmeasured herbs, garlic, salt, pepper, and oregano, and then brown it on all sides in a frying pan with some olive oil. Then deglazes the pan and that’s the gravy. It goes in a pan under the meat in the oven during roasting. Both ways are great