CHICAGO STYLE ITALIAN BEEF SANDWICH (Made By Man From Chicago)

hey what's up today i'm going to show you how to make classic chicago style italian beef sandwiches from scratch we're going to make the jardinera the bread the beef and of course the juice to get started i need to make this spicy oily pickled vegetable known as jardinera for that i've got cauliflower celery green bell peppers serrano chilis and baby carrots now i'm gonna throw a small dice into all five of these veggies i've got 150 grams of each of them with the exception of these serranos i've got just 75 grams of those and beware these are really spicy feel free to either use less of them or use jalapenos in their place which are less spicy and use gloves to keep the heat off your hands and your wiener once all these veggies are chopped into a small dice i'm going to toss everything in this bowl to combine in total this should yield about one full quart or a full liter of finished jordan era over at the stove i've got my pickling liquid for this coming up to a boil that's 400 grams of white steel vinegar 200 grams of water and 24 grams of salt once that's all at a rolling boil in goes the chopped veggies i'm gonna turn off the heat and let this mixture cook as it cools down to about room temperature the pickle brine here is really quite salty and quite sour too much for a regular pickle for sure but these are gonna be bathed in oil later on so we need intensity in the veg to cut through all that fat once this is cooled off into a quart container it goes and from there i'm gonna let this jar continue to pickle and become acidified in the fridge for two whole days up next is the bread part of this sandwich this is some grocery store stuff that was labeled as french rolls they aren't that great honestly get something from a proper bakery if you can the problem with this grocery store stuff is that it's kind of brittle it's definitely not strong enough to hold the wetness of this sandwich and it's dry we can do better for sure so to make proper french rolls for this beef sandwich i'm going to grab my stand mixer and into the bowl of that i'm going to measure 225 grams of warm water 9 grams of yeast 20 grams of olive oil 15 grams of sugar 350 grams of strong bread flour and 9 grams of salt the dough hook goes on and now i'm gonna mix this on low speed just until things come together for about three minutes when the dough is clumped up into a mass like this i'm going to turn the mixer up to high speed and mix for an additional six minutes more this dough is going to need all of that time in the bowl part of what allows the sandwich rolls they use in chicago to stand up to all that beef jui is a well-developed strong gluten network that has a really good chew to it after nine minutes total of mixing this dough is super strong and does not tear at all when we give it a hard tug like this into the bowl goes the lid goes on and now i'm gonna let this ferment on the counter for 90 minutes after that 90 minutes this dough has grown by quite a bit but you will notice that we did not do any strength building folds during the fermentation here so it's going to deflate a little bit when we pop that lid and that's totally fine we're going to be adding a lot more strength right now to start shaping i'm going to flour my dough then the board and then i'm going to divide these into two equal sized pieces that are roughly 300 grams a piece from there i'm going to pre-shape these into nice taut round balls and if you aren't familiar pre-shaping both brings needed structure to the dough before we turn it into a final loaf shape and it also gives us uniform pieces to use as a starting point in the shaping process once these are rounded off they're going to get covered with a tea towel and i'm going to let them rest here for 15 minutes after that 15 minutes now it's time to shape to do that i'm going to flip one of these out of the way and then i'm going to flip the other one on its back and now i'm gonna shape these like a baguette start by pulling out the dough on each side to get a wide rectangle now working from the bottom up i'm gonna roll this dough into a tight little cylinder thing by rolling it forward and pulling back once this is rolled up into a nice taut tube next i'm gonna come back with my fingertips and thumbs in a triangle shape and then use those to roll this into a longer wider piece of dough now i'm gonna flatten the ends real quick and repeat that for dough ball two and then i'm gonna grab a sheet tray with some parchment paper i'll hit that with a generous dose of cornmeal or semolina flour and finally i'm going to give these tubes one final roll out to make sure that they're proper sandwich length and width oh yeah and i'm also going to smush these down real quick to make sure that they actually are a little bit wider than they are tall this is going to give us a much more sandwich friendly shape of bread now i'm going to cover this with a sheet tray and let it proof here on the counter for 30 to 45 minutes depending on the temperature of your house 45 minutes later when i look back at these they're all proofed up and they've grown in size by about 75 or so now i'm going to score these with my bread razor here real quick tip to tip bb next i'm going to load these into a preheated 375 degree fahrenheit oven or 190c and bake for about 30 minutes baking bread at such low temperature is new territory for me i'm usually all about that thick chewy crust but since this style of bread has almost equal parts crust to crumb having a thick rustic crust actually means torn up mouths and hard to eat sandwiches so lower temps allow that crust to set up slower and it becomes a thinner more sandwich friendly texture after that 30 minutes take a look i'm just delighted how these turned out they have a great shape they've got a thin tender crust cornmeal on the bottom you guys it's gonna be a perfect vehicle for the absolute slop fest of italian beef that is coming our way speaking of beef here we go for the sandwich i've chosen to go with a respectable lean roast of meat called top round roast this is from the sirloin it has a little bit more fat than just straight up rump roast but anything from the back end of the cow should work fine as long as it has some intramuscular fat i've got two two pound roasts here one pound for each sandwich roll these will shrink a lot so don't be scared if you're like okay i need a pound of meat bry over at the stove i've got my large dutch oven preheating and into that i'm gonna add three to four glugs of neutral high temp cooking oil and then i'm gonna add in two roasts at a time no salt no pepper we're mainly adding these in to get some browned beef stuff on the bottom of the pot that's gonna be great for fortifying the beef shoe which if you don't know beef shoe is like the crux of this sandwich and making it as intensely beefy as possible is a serious priority at some point i'm going to rotate in the second two pieces of beef and don't worry if the sears on the outside of this aren't perfect it's all about the jew not the exterior of the meat once the bottom of my pot is well coated in seared beef fond i'm gonna deglaze this thing with a thousand grams or roughly one quart of really nice beef stock if you've got it if you don't got it we're gonna make some right now or if you don't want to we can definitely cheat this later on in my opinion great beef stock comes from beef shanks because shanks have tons of connective tissue and tons of beef flavor that's all the stuff that we want here i've roasted about six to eight pounds of beef shanks in a really hot oven for about 30 minutes until they are very very golden brown just like these ones now to make these into stock i'm gonna grab my instant pot and use it like a slow cooker in my opinion doing this on the countertop is a lot easier and more passive than doing it on top of the stove top where there's flames and stuff now i'm gonna put these shanks into my instant pot and then add some water onto the sheet tray to scrape up all that roasty brown stuff that's super valuable and once everything's in there i'm gonna add two kilos or liters or two quarts of water and slow cook not pressure cook this for six hours no veg no herbs just beef six hours later as you can see this stuff looks beautiful it's dark and beefy it's sticky and everything we need for insane beef sandwich shoe so once that's in my beef pot now i'm gonna add in my top secret italian beef spice mix which is not a secret at all actually it's five grams each of dried oregano garlic powder onion powder toasted coriander seed chili flake paprika toasted fennel seed and black pepper shake it all up and there we go brian's super secret chicago style beef spice available west of 290 in lombard in chicagoland now into the pot that spice blend goes and as you can see i've nestled all four beef chunks into this stock and once that's up to a simmer i'm gonna top this with a cut out piece of parchment paper to keep this beef from drying out and then i'm gonna load this whole thing into a preheated 250 degree fahrenheit 120c oven and cook for about 60 minutes after that 60 minutes it's time to check on the beef essentially we have just made wet roasted beef yeah that sounds pretty weird but that's how they do it in the beef shops these guys are not like classically trained french chefs they make sandwiches and they do what works now to check done is i'm going to grab my instant read thermometer and see where it's at we're at about 145 degrees fahrenheit that's going to coast up to a slightly higher temp as it cools next i'm going to steal a move from the catering world and wrap these beefs with plastic wrap while they are still warm and then throw them in the refrigerator to rest and cool at the same time the plastic wrap helps keep the moisture from evaporating off the meat and kind of seals in the juices literally props to ethan trablowski fellow youtuber and culinary bad boy for reminding me that this was an option but if you're weird about plastic don't worry about it just skip that and cool down the beef in the juice as for the ju we're gonna strain that off get all the spices out of there and then cool that down with the beef until we're ready to eat the beef while that cools let's finish the jardin area real quick this stuff's been pickling in the fridge for two days now and it's time to finish it off i'm gonna drain off all of this super sour super salty pickle brine and replace it with 300 grams of neutral oil i'm using a light colored olive oil here and then 150 grams of regular extra virgin olive oil i'm gonna give that a stir to combine and there we have it handmade jardinera this stuff gets better as it marinates in the fridge it kind of becomes something else it unifies into something really special but if you don't have time or interest to make this yourself there should be something store-bought available like this that is still very great it's less intense for sure and a little less fun but as far as store-bought foods go nothing to stick your nose up at here i can definitely recommend store-bought jarred back to the beef we've arrived at the main dilemma of a good chicago beef how do you slice it tissue paper thin hand slicing is definitely a possibility and not a bad option if it's your only option and you own a sharp knife you won't get tissue paper thin slices but if you don't over cook it in the juice later it will be tender and tasty and probably worth your time option two is to not roast the beef yourself but instead opt to buy very thinly sliced roast beef from the grocery store and when i say very thinly sliced i mean shaved basically buy this stuff as thin as they can possibly get it but the dilemma here with buying sliced roast beef is that we do not have delicious juice from the cooking process so we will need to cheat the system a little bit to do that take one quart of strong beef stock add in the secret spice blend and then a few tablespoons of beef bouillon paste that's right i endorse it for this recipe because i guarantee that most if not all of the beef shops in chicago use some form of concentrated beef paste to season their ju as a chef you'll have to trust me that the economics of making ju from bones at scale in a beef restaurant just doesn't make sense at loafers we made our beef shoe with beef shanks as you will see in this video and the italian beef sandwich even at 14 did not really make us any money so using beef bouillon is okay in my book i recommend the paste like this better than bouillon product as you can see the powdered stuff tends to taste a little bit like beef ramen which is not great in my opinion once that's all simmered together for about 30 minutes i'm going to strain off the spices and then bring it back to 140 degrees fahrenheit and then i'm going to dunk in that store-bought beef at this point the beef is gently going to cook in that 140 degree beef shoe and there you go tender sloppy good but not great chicago style beef the final option the best option and the one that i've gone for in this video is using a deli slicer to slice the stuff that we just cooked into tissue paper thin slices because of my job i have access to a meat slicer so it's kind of like cheating you guys probably won't be able to do this but once i've got this stuff sliced i'll get it back to my house and i'm gonna get my juice set up to finish off this sandwich we're gonna do this pretty similar to how we just did it a second ago into my saucepan goes the juice i cook the beef in then i'm going to sneak in a spoonful of that better than bouillon paste that i was just telling you about trust me the pros are super charging even the best beef shoes with this stuff at least i think let me know in the comments if i'm wrong over the stove we're gonna taste this for seasoning again this stuff needs to be very salty it is not soup it should be very intense and you should not really be able to comfortably drink more than a few tablespoons of this stuff at a time once that's seasoned and up to temperature in this case 145 degrees fahrenheit or 62c i'm going to turn the heat to its lowest setting to maintain and then i'm going to add in all my beef i'm putting in about 8 to 10 ounces per sandwich a lot basically and then after about 30 seconds or so of bathing in nice salty beef shoe that meat should be ready to go it's thin and just a little rosy in some spots and just looks super perfect bread wise no need to toast or warm up what we made earlier room temp is actually preferred i'm just going to cut this in half and then lop off the ends and cut it in half to open it up as far as the build of this sandwich goes i'm going to show you how i do it but there are a lot of ways to play here a lot of things look like success basically for me i lift the beef out of the ju and then drip it liberally all over the bread and repeat i think this would technically be called wet i go out of my way to get a bunch of juice on the bread but still leave some areas untouched and dry once that's loaded up with beef next goes on the jardinera and i layer it on super thick this is probably my favorite part of the sandwich and i topped the whole thing with additional ju just to make sure that it's the right amount of wet from here some people add roasted sweet bell peppers which in most beef places means overcooked sauteed green bell peppers those are not really my favorite also those were not really an option at the suburban places i grew up beefing at when i was young and they aren't my truth but feel free to throw sweet peps on your beef finally to bring this to a pro level this sandwich needs to be wrapped tightly with parchment paper this move alone forms the whole thing from a mess into a nice tight package that you can actually call the sandwich and it's 75 percent less likely to fall apart when you eat it and you can see when you cut into this parchment all of that hard work has finally paid off we've got a tight well-built sandwich that hits all the details we want and honestly looks like something straight out of a paper bag from johnny's or al's beef and if you want to be an absolute psycho about it dip this entire sandwich into that zoo a lot of chicago people go for that it basically makes the bread into paste and it's no longer a sandwich it's not for me but the world is yours basically now you have the tools to make a real deal italian chicago beef in your home i really hope you give it a try let's eat this thing [Music] before i get out of here a huge thank you to everybody who supports this channel on kofi if you guys aren't familiar with kofi the link will be down in the description it's a great way to support what i'm doing here on the channel as always guys thank you so much for your time and attention thank you for sticking around to the end and we'll see you next time

Channel: Brian Lagerstrom

Views: 698,801

Keywords: chicago Italian beef sandwich, chicago Italian beef, italian beef, Italian beef sandwich recipe, chicago style Italian beef, giardiniera recipe, French roll recipe, roast beef, portillo's Italian beef, chicago beef, roast beef sandwich, dipped Italian beef, wet Italian beef, beef jus, chicago, chicago food, sandwich, beef sandwich, best sandwich, best chicago food, homemade Italian beef, Italian beef from scratch, cooking, food, weeds and sardines, Brian lagerstrom, recipes

Id: PNGtpfEahwI

Length: 13min 41sec (821 seconds)

Published: Thu May 27 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/OnReddit365]

And a square afterwards. Whole ass mood.🤤

[u/Zolidduece]

That bit do like fye w a cold Pepsi

[u/muskegon321LikeDMeat]

FROM SCRATCH!!! 🤌🏻

[u/[deleted]]

Aw here we go, everybody about to hop on the Italian beef wave now.

[u/MuwopFrmAisle4]

Dead ass, I’d prolly snitch too😭

[u/joesoldlegs]

If I was Butta I'd snitch too I ain't lying

[u/YoungCapoon]

Hard

[u/SeaFuture3337]

“Sausage no homo” Lonzo Ball

[u/joesoldlegs]

I have that same pressure cooker