Italian beef: Difference between revisions
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==Variations== |
==Variations== |
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[[Image:Italianbeefwithcheese.JPG|thumb|270px|Italian Beef with cheese, as served by [[Portillo%27s_Restaurants|Portillo's]] in Chicago, Illinois.]] |
[[Image:Italianbeefwithcheese.JPG|thumb|270px|Italian Beef with cheese, as served by [[Portillo%27s_Restaurants|Portillo's]] in Chicago, Illinois.]] |
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A popular variation of the Italian Beef is the Italian Beef with [[cheese]]. It is sometimes called a Cheesey Beef or Cheef. While it is less traditional a reasonable number of restraunts offer and serve this variation as part of their menu's in addition to the more traditional recipe. Cheesey Beefs often include [[Mozzarella]] but sometimes use [[cheddar]] in its place. The cheese is usually added to the Italian Beef last or right before the peppers. This variation of the Italian Beef is even more difficult to obtain than the more traditional sandwich outside of the Chicagoland area. |
A popular variation of the Italian Beef is the Italian Beef with [[cheese]]. It is sometimes called a Cheesey Beef or Cheef. While it is less traditional, a reasonable number of restraunts offer and serve this variation as part of their menu's in addition to the more traditional recipe. Cheesey Beefs often include [[Mozzarella]] but sometimes use [[cheddar]] in its place. The cheese is usually added to the Italian Beef last or right before the peppers. This variation of the Italian Beef is even more difficult to obtain than the more traditional sandwich outside of the Chicagoland area. |
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Other even less common variations of the Italian Beef include substituting Italian bread with a large [[croissant]], serving the beef dry (as opposed to sopping wet), or with [[marinara sauce]]. |
Other even less common variations of the Italian Beef include substituting Italian bread with a large [[croissant]], serving the beef dry (as opposed to sopping wet), or with [[marinara sauce]]. |
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Revision as of 21:19, 14 September 2006
An Italian beef sandwich consists of thin slices of beef served inside Italian bread or some other crusty bread (often soaked), which has been cut lengthwise and into individual portions. (The "Italian Bread" commonly used in Chicago is a white loaf with a high gluten content and little to no sourdough flavor, made to be reminiscent of what many think of as being Italian restaurant bread). Even though it is served on Italian bread sliced lengthwise, this is the only thing it has in common with submarine sandwiches. Italian beef is made using cuts of beef from the sirloin butt (Scala's) or the top/bottom round wet-roasted in broth with garlic, oregano and spices until medium rare or medium. The roast is then cooled, then sliced very thinly ("shaved") using a deli slicer, and then served dripping wet after a reintroduction to its reheated beef cooking broth, topped off with sauteed green bell peppers, or hot Chicago-style "Giardiniera" peppers (mix of Serrano peppers, carrot, cauliflower, celery, olives, and oil/spices), or rarely marinara sauce by request; thus the need to use a chewy bread for this dish: a softer bread would disintegrate.
Native locales
The Italian beef sandwich is a dish associated with Chicago. It is difficult to obtain outside the Chicago area. Italian Beef sandwiches can be found at most hot dog stands and small Italian-American restaurants throughout the city and its suburbs. Most Chicago hotdog-stand-style Italian Beef retailers purchase pre-seasoned, pre-cooked, and pre-sliced Italian Beef with separate cooking broth ("au jus"), and then heat and serve, while other retailers purchase the raw beef cuts and prepare it themselves. Chicago's favorite, highly-rated, or "famed" Italian Beef places typically prepare the beef themselves on their own premises according to their own recipes. Probably the most famous of these "famed" Italian Beef places in Chicago is Al's #1 Italian Beef Sandwiches. Some produce their own homemade "hot giardiniera" too, but this is more rare.
In the 50's and 60's this dish was commonly know as "Dago Beef" and signs on local taverns (and the menus within) would advertise it as such well into the 80's. As the term Dago became more widely understood to be offensive, the term Dago Beef has begun to dissapear.
Possible origins
As is the case with much of the life and culture of the immigrant classes during the turn of the 20th century, this dish has seen little documentation in print, and its origins may never be fully known.
The usual story (when a story is offered at all) seems to be that this dish is known as "Italian beef" because the vendors who once sold it in the street were of Italian descent. Another story is that an Italian chef wanted to spice up the traditional French Dip sandwich and he used garlic and oregano. Other places it is told that the name comes from the idea that Italians put a lot of seasoning on their beef ([1]).
Stylistically, the dish is typical of Italian-American immigrant cooking in America during the early 20th Century. Whereas in Italy at that time, particularly Southern Italy, meat was scarce, in America it was more readily available. The Italian-American immigrants adapted their cuisine and cooking to the products available to them. Like the ubiquitous Italian-American meatball, which is not considered particularly traditional Italian food in Italy, the Italian Beef and American roasts, became a part of Italian-American cooking in the New World.
Italian beef became popular at Italian weddings, where it was an inexpensive meal for the guests. The women would make large quantities, and then make individual sandwiches which they wrapped in paper and served.
"A few years later when the great depression arrived, times were hard and "necessity became the mother of invention." At a time when food and other goods were scarce, Scala Packing helped develop and introduce the concept of serving thinly sliced beef on a bun and loaded with gravy. 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." -from www.scalasbeef.com
Variations
A popular variation of the Italian Beef is the Italian Beef with cheese. It is sometimes called a Cheesey Beef or Cheef. While it is less traditional, a reasonable number of restraunts offer and serve this variation as part of their menu's in addition to the more traditional recipe. Cheesey Beefs often include Mozzarella but sometimes use cheddar in its place. The cheese is usually added to the Italian Beef last or right before the peppers. This variation of the Italian Beef is even more difficult to obtain than the more traditional sandwich outside of the Chicagoland area.
Other even less common variations of the Italian Beef include substituting Italian bread with a large croissant, serving the beef dry (as opposed to sopping wet), or with marinara sauce.