This is going to taste good. I don't care what you say. We have to eat this? Are you sure? What to you, we get to eat this, yeah. 1979, the same decade that
The Beatles disbanded, a new super group was formed under the McDonald's golden arches. Talking about the chopped
beefsteak sandwich with a side of onion nuggets, Trevor, and it is a taste that we
are aching to eat again. Trevor, when the broken
hearted people living in the world agree, what do you do? I don't know. You bring it. Back from the past! It's time for. Past Food! There's no crescendo, there's no drive. It's just like we're yelling at 'em. And then again. We're yelling at 'em. Back from the past! Past food! Let's do it. Let's get some aggression. Trevor, I bet you know that
McDonald's has a breakfast menu? Yes, I do. But did you know that they
once had a dinner menu? No. I think it's actually kind of wild. They had a dedicated dinner menu that was served between
4:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.. Dinner. You bet, dinner? This was like the kickoff item. They had the chopped beefsteak sandwich. It was meant to appeal to like
newly working families who, you know, they didn't
want to make anything. They come to McDonald's to
get a nice classy dinner, like a chopped beefsteak sandwich. So neither of us were around in 1979. 13 years before my birth, 38 years before yours. This is what we got coming from our end. We're taking some London broil here and we're going to kind of like emulsify that with some chemicals
and flavoring agents, and try and make a disc that
fits into an oblong bun, but it's almost identical
to the McRib bun. This is essentially the McSteak. Okay. This is the McSteak, the
precursor to the McRib. What we're getting from McDonald's, we walk into a McDonald's, we said, hey, can you please fill
a drink cup with onion? So that's what we got going on here. So this is what we're going to use to make our onion nuggets. We're going to saute these. We're gonna try and freeze them and we're going to figure out
how to nuggetify some onions. Why'd you put them on
the counter like that? I don't know. I did it for emphasis
and now I'm regretting it because we gotta here,
I'll scoop them back up. No. Trevor, talk to them. I'll scoop the onions. Okay, so Josh said 1979 was
38 years before I was born, but I did the math in my
head and that's not true. Thing about McDonald's
onions is they're pretty old. Huff that. This is not those pungent
onions you've ever smelled? Well, hey, let's get to cookin'. Trevor, we're gonna get to the beef, but first before the beef, you got onions. Yeah. 'Cause the cows eat the onions. That builds and big and strong, and then you make the beef. I don't know that's how. Do you know the scene
in "Napoleon Dynamite," where he tastes milk and he was with like, "This cow got into an onion patch." That's a real thing. If cows eat onions, the
milk will taste like onions. Oh, that's right, 'cause he has a brief
stint as a milk taster. Correct-amundo, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's real. That's like scientifically accurate. So we're going to make
these onion nuggets. So what we're going to do. We're just going to saute these. I never had these. It was 1979, for crying out loud. But I've read some firsthand accounts of people eating the onion nuggets. It appears what they have done
is they saute some onions, they like freeze them into little dollops, and then they bread them and fry them. So you eat this crispy nugget and it explodes in your
mouth with onion goo. Wow, I can't wait. Does that idea appeal to you? You know, I think it
actually sounds pretty good. I mean, I like onion rings. I like onion rings but I actually kind of hate onion rings. Yeah, 'cause you slurp the onion out. You slurp the onion out. This is the better
alternative to onion rings. I agree with that. This way you can like season the onions. So we're going to add
some white pepper to that. We're just adding dehydrated onion to increase the amount of onion flavor. Onion! It's like, you know
whenever you drink milk, you should like add more
powdered milk to it. That way you get more milk per milk? I don't think that's, no. Yeah, no, that's what I do. That's how you get extra
protein in your diet. You get more milk per milk
if you add powdered milk. So we're getting more onion per onion by adding the onion powder to the onion. We're gonna add some black pepper. And then Trevor, taste some of that powder. It's MSG, I feel stupid. Yeah, eat it! Eat it! Eat the MSG! Tastes like MSG. Yeah, it's great, I love it. Gosh, do I love it. So we're adding MSG and salt in there because we're trying to make like a dense little
flavor of bomb in this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this obviously did not
work out for McDonald's. It wouldn't be here. Any dish that did work out
would not be on this show. It's crazy that these came out
47 years before I was born. Do you ever feel like you're too young? Like you should age up a little bit? I used to do that when I was, I went from being very young in the office to being very old so quick. Sometimes I feel like the
young guy, like the kid, like, and I don't want to be the dumb kid. But you know, sometimes I just resign myself to that. Lean into it while you can. That's my advice. Because again, you're
going to be old so fast and time will just pass you by, and you will have
existential crises about it, trying to decode what's
going on in TikTok. Okay. What are the, what are
the, all these teens? I'll prepare myself for that. Yeah. Yeah. This is fun. This is the onions. It's not the, okay, it's not the most fun thing right now. We're waiting for the onion to saute. Sorry Trevor. This is the thing about
the young generation. Everything is so fast. Like you all have ADHD whereas people from my generation know
we're incredibly focused and diligent about the
things that we're doing. Yeah, definitely. These onions are nice and sauteed. We want to get them translucent but we don't want them to be caramelized, so we're going to keep
all that onion flavor. We dump them in there. So here, Trevor, take that, spoon little onion dollops in there. We need to freeze these
into little dollops. It needs to be definitely
smaller than that. Like cut that in half. We're just going to
freeze these and fry 'em? This is like how chicken nuggets are made. They've cut little chicken nuggets. What do you want from me? No, nothing. I just, I'm surprised they're not blended. No, they had some like
whole onion chunk in there but then when you freeze these, all the water molecules and the oil are going to kind of combine
and when you fry them, it's all going to melt into just a goo. And why McDonald's thought
just creating a explosion of onion goo was good for the brand, it's a little bit unclear, but it does feel like a kind of elevated onion rings
situation, you know? Yeah. You're a businessman coming home in 1979 and you're like, eh, "Mad Men." I never watched "Mad Men." I'm not going to be, I just assume it was the type of people they were
advertising to in 1979. If this is what were
doing at the McDonald's, I can understand why
these might've failed. It's like love is merely a drug that your body whispers in your ear, and I am the man behind that whisper with the lingerie commercial. I'm Don Draper. Then he like smokes
inside next to a child. Who is Don Draper? He's the guy who's got the, never mind. We're going to let them freeze and then we're going to get on to the chopped beefsteak sandwich, which that one, Trevor, I know how much you love to throw throw meat in the blender. Yeah. We're back at it, baby. Unsheathe your sword! Avast, you scallywags! What was that? Pirate. Who? I was being a pirate. Never seen her. What? Okay, so what we can do, I'm not going to be asking. I have no idea what the
chopped beefsteak sandwich was, on the count that it was made in 1979. However, I have had these like
chopped beefsteak sandwiches from other fast food restaurants. Carl's Jr. had a really nice
Western bacon steak sandwich. It's all these like
pressed and formed patties. So pick up that knife. I'm going to flap this down. There it is. Don't mind the color on it. Actually, it is very normal for beef to be brown on the outside. All that is is, nope. That's the opposite. Supposed to be red in the outside, brown on the inside. Well, our beef's brown. Deal it. So what separates this from a hamburger. One, at McDonald's this cost $1.49, which was more than three times more than the normal hamburger price. Allegedly some people who
had it really loved it, but it was an incredibly
expensive item for the time. What I imagine they were doing is they were taking a whole steak as opposed to all the beef trimmings that go into a burger and there
was blending the whole steak with various spices and different starches to sort of give it form. So it was a pressed and chopped patty. It wasn't just a whole piece of steak. To hold this together, we're going to add some
cornstarch in there. This is how McDonald's
makes things cheaper. They thin it out with other things so you get less beef per beef. The same way that we got
more onion per onion, we're getting less beef per beef within this beefsteak sandwich. Wow, there's a lot of science
science that goes into this. A lot of science goes into this. So we're going to add some garlic powder. We're going to take like that trinity of fast food flavorings, which is just garlic, onion, white pepper, and then also MSG. We're calling it the quadrinity. Quadrinity? Is this beef safe to eat? Yeah, no, look at that. It's nice and red on the inside and brown on the outside. Why would the manager
say it's his special cut of beef if it wasn't good? It almost doesn't have any texture to it when you cut it either, which is really incredible. You can kind of just mash up the beef. I've never seen beef
that you can just mash. Was I going too slow for you? A little bit. Was I giving it too much care? Tender loving care. Okay here, pop the top on that and we're going to blend it
and then stream in some water to try and decrease our food cost on this. That's how scientific run. Let it run. You click it. I don't know how to click the button. Yeah, yeah, no, that's fine. You gotta jimmy it. You gotta jimmy it and it will go. Give it a sec. It's gonna blend the meat. Now it'll get there. What's going on? What happened? Throw a little water in there. Yeah, yeah, now pop it
on, pop it on, pop it on. It should work. It's going to be good, though. I mean, this is how
sausage is made, you know? There we go. Now it's working. Spin it, meat tornado! There we go. That's what I'm talking about. All right, so we got our beef blending. Once you see it kind of
creating a soft ball at the top, that's what we want. Yeah, perfect. Oh God. Perfect, perfect. That's awesome. Oh dear God. Here, make some space. Make some room, make some
room, make some room. We're going to spray this down with a little bit of food lube. Oh, look at the shleen that shot out. Trevor, dunk out. Yeah, yeah, that's just beef juice. Should be fine. So take some of that beef, pop it right there. Pop that beef for papa. Pop the beef for papa, Trevor. Great, that's perfect. Then you kinda slap it
out a little bit here. Rolling pin fell. No, it's fine. Oh God, what have we done? This doesn't look like sausage. I'm like this is sausage. This doesn't look like sausage. This looks like a human material. Rolling pin was on the ground. Yeah, for sure. Well, you're going to put it
over the sheet though, right? Yeah. It doesn't matter. It's not touching the meat. That's what I say. It's like when I drop like a piece of, it's like when I drop
a grape on the ground, it's like I don't eat the skin. I chew the grape and
then I spit the skin out. So it's fine. I can eat ground grapes. You want to do it? You're a baker. Yeah, so we're looking for like about a half-inch thickness right here and then we're going
to carve out the shape of the oblong bun. All right, it's done. You said a half inch. That's good stuff, Trevor. You said a half-inch. No, you gotta pat it out now. You gotta spread it. Why? It wasn't even. I take pride in my work. It was even. It was even. It's less even now. Now it's great. You wanna grab a bun? We should do, we need a sacrificial bun 'cause
we're covered in raw beef. I have an itch and I don't
know how to scratch it. Get it on my elbow. Oh, it's so greasy. This is what my cat does. It's so greasy. Yeah, I'm covered in grease. Just put the bun on the raw meat. We're not gonna eat this bun. What we're going to do is we're going to trace around this. We want to get about 20% more because this is going to shrink up because that water's going to steam out. This is funny. Now we got a little beef patty. So we're going to form a
couple more of these patties. We gotta roll this out again and then we're going to go ahead and, go ahead and bake this off. I'm ready, man. Are you ready?
Yeah! Are you ready, you pumped? Yeah.
You pumped? Yeah.
You pumped? Let's get it going. Slap me in the back like a power lifter. Yeah, yeah, yeah! Trevor, so we got the
beefsteak patties baking in the oven right there. Right now we got to make the steak sauce that goes on this. Okay. Steak sauce is typically made from like a whole bunch of crap. Yeah, yeah. A.1. has raisins in it. What? It's definitely got a
lot of Worcestershire. Yeah, A.1. got raisins. I hate raisins, frick! I'm only gonna say raisins. I can't eat A.1. anymore. I'm sorry, man. It really seemed to hit you hard. Dang it! So we're taking Worcestershire sauce. Worcestershire is made from fish, you know that? No. Ha, got him, take ketchup. Put the ketchup in there. I can do it. Sometimes we don't have enough
for two of us to do a thing so I'm just like, Trevor
hand me that garlic and then that's what we do. That's what this intricate dance is. You know, we don't think out sometimes. Anyways, steak sauce from McDonald's. What I imagined, it's
very corn syrupy, right? Yeah, yeah. Now we got places that
are partnering with A.1. and doing that but I imagine
their steak sauce back then, it was just like a whole lot of ketchup, a little bit of Worcestershire, probably some other
different flavorings in there that people like. You know, you got a little bit of mustard. A little bit of mustard is nice on steak. Beef and mustard to
together with horseradish. That's adult. They're trying to market this to adults. Yeah. It's what the sexy,
fancy Madison Avenue men, that's what "Mad Men" is short for. You didn't know that? Yeah. A little bit of garlic,
a little bit of salt, a little bit of onion powder. You know the drill. You know it's in all fast food. That's stuck in there. What's this? Corn syrup. This is water. Oh God, it's spilling out. So we're going to add
the corn syrup to that. That's going to give it a nice shiny coat and then we're actually going to glaze the beefsteak
patty in there because. Oh. Are you going to stir that at all? No, it's corn syrup and garlic powder. You should probably stir it. I don't think so. So Trevor, take some of that. What is it? It's called browning. The only ingredients are
caramel color and thick. What does it do? It makes things thick
and colored like caramel. Like anytime you see fast food that looks like way too
unnaturally brown, right? They're not actually
getting a nice char on it. They're like peaking it in an oven. Peaking it? Peak, they're peaking it in an oven until it's just nice and sweaty, and then they're taking some
sort of a browning thing, brushing it on it. You see how brown this is? Trevor, is that, you ever seen
a sauce browner than this? It's real brown. I don't think I have. This is 1979 brown right here. Tastes like disco and a
precursor to the Reagan era. This bottle looks like it's from 1979. They have not changed
anything on the wrap. Anyone who is using browning in a bottle does not care about branding. That is not a consumer friendly product. All right Trevor, grab the whisk. So we got our beefsteaks that are just kind of a little sweaty. Oh my God , they're so wet. Yeah, they're kind of
leaking out a fair amount of that water that we put in there, but I think that's gonna make
it really nice and juicy. That is horrifying. This is going to taste good. I don't care what you say. We have to eat this? Are you sure? What do you, we get to eat this, yeah? Hold on, hold on. Yeah, bring it out. Oh my God! If you look at the beefsteak patties, we've kind of done the way you like flood a rice patty to cook it. We'll just brush some of that liquid off. What is going on? We'll just mop that. That is dog food. Trevor, this is not dog food. It's going to, smell it. Okay, it smells like dog food, but Trevor, check this out. Once we get again, it doesn't look like
anything till we're going to brush the browning in with that liquid. Now it looks like poo. Uh huh, no, it's going to be nice. This is like me a day
after getting meat sweats, going into the 24 Hour
Fitness sauna and I just leak. This is poo. Why didn't you want to cook it in a pan? 'Cause this how McDonald's
was probably doing it. How do you know? It was 130 years ago! Smell that, it's vinegar. It's like what they do
with the McRib, right? That's never seen a grill. It's never even seen a flat top. They've baked it in an industrial oven and than they keep it in
the heat drawer glazed in whatever the sugar sauce is, and it's delicious! You don't know that! You don't know that! This was 130 years ago. I surmised. I've surmised, Trevor. 130. Allow me to surmise. This smells so bad. Can you go and pop this back in the oven? Yeah. We're just gonna pop that
back in the oven for, I don't know, anywhere between like two hours and then a couple of days. You know, 'cause I imagine they weren't moving these
very fast back then. They probably just kind
of kept them warming. It's like a what's that called? Like an infinite sauce? What? No, no, infinite stew. In the middle ages, they used to just like keep the same pot of stew going for years,
and they'd like, you know, like feed the little orphans in the medieval times square and they'd just have one pot of stew and they'd throw more stuff
in it and more stuff in it. Why do you have to lie to people? No, it's like the way
that what's his name? Enrique Olvera from Pujol
has had the same pot of mole going for 10 years now. This is what McDonald's does
to the beefsteak sandwiches. Just go with it. Yeah, but it's discontinued so how are they going to keep it going? There's got to be one McDonald's that kept this in the drawer since 1979 and there's still a couple in there. No. We gotta find it. So I'm going to drop these into the flour and we're just going to
get them nice and coated, and then I'm going to
ship them over to you, and then you go egg and
then into breadcrumb, right? We're going to do a little assembly line, just like the McDonald's. Then right in the fryer. Right after the breadcrumbs, make sure they're completely coated. How are you feeling? Are you confident? Yeah, I'm confident. They're going to good. Think about it 'cause
we got the sweaty beef and then we got these
onions exploding with goo. The combination of sweaty
beef and exploding goo, it never steered me wrong. I got chunky fingers. Yeah, yeah, here. Just shlop it off, shlop
it off, shlop it off. I'm shloppin', I'm shloppin'. Coat in the flour. It smells like fried stuff. Yeah. That's a good sign that
we're doing something right. Even though the onion nuggets failed or even though these were discontinued very soon after they debuted, the chairman of McDonald's
at the time was like hey, onion nuggets were a failure
but nuggets in general, what a successful concept. You should do these with chicken. That's how the chicken nugget was born. Look at these. That said, with the amount of people that are going back to
a vegetarian diet now, this is the chance that
it'll make a come back. Those are looking awesome, man. I think you should pull those. Pull those? This is looking good. I'm trying to get them a
little more uniform in here. Yeah, ours are looking a little craggy. They're looking a little craggy. What did they look like? I don't even think I know. Oh, they looked exactly like that. I mean they're just little turds. They're just little fried turds. I'm pretty happy with this. I'm pretty happy. I think these look good. I think these would be the perfect side. We got our beef sweatin' still. Actually looks pretty good. They do look good. You ever have the corn
fritters at the Sizzler buffet? No. RIP Sizzler buffet. Up in heaven. I can't wait to meet you
when my name gets called. I did. What? I did go to the Sizzler though, but I don't remember the corn fritters. Corn fritters. They had corn fritters and they were discontinued on the buffet. There were like this except
when you bit into it, it was just a goo of corn
instead of a goo of onions. Oh, that sounds less fun. What do you mean, less fun? Corn is the funnest vegetable. No. It comes, you see it when you poop. That's the most fun thing there is. You see everything when you poop, you just don't see it whole. That's fair. And that's a metaphor for
life if you think about it. I'm pretty happy with these
onion nuggets, though. I am too. I actually really want
to eat on right now, but I'm not because I want
to have the full experience. We gotta cut to the packaging. Trevor, back in 1979 when I was eating these onion nuggets, I was like, this day
is never going to come. When they're gonna come back. But here they are right now in the flesh. Onion nuggets. Boy, do they smell like wet Funyuns, I'm excited. Yeah. They're like Funyuns
that fell in the pool. Yeah, yeah, let's let's get into it. All right, are gonna dip it in the steak? No, we should go plain. The inside. What's going on? It's onion goo. It's almost like if someone, if someone tried to make a tater tot but then got kind of fell
into like a bed of onions. Like ah, we can't afford to waste it. It's got a bit of a sandy texture to it. Yeah. But not in a bad way. No, I like it. Would you eat these as like a side as opposed to say like, I
don't know, a French fry? I don't know if I would go
over a McDonald's French fry, but I way prefer these to onion rings. I guess so, yeah. Okay, onion nuggets, that's you. Let's get into this McSteak. Oh God. I'm not as excited about this. There we go. I'm pretty excited about this. You got the onions, you got the floppy beef patty here. I kinda want to rip it in half. It really does look like a
McDonald's sandwich, though. It sure does. We did a good job. Here, before we taste this. I don't care what it tastes
like because I'm proud of us. I think we really faithfully recreated what the chopped beefsteak sandwich is and that is a real friends
made along the way. Mm. Oh, well, hold on now. Hold on. Dip it in the steak sauce. When I was talking about that
Carl's Jr. steak sandwich that I had, this perfectly recreates
that experience in the sense that it's not a steak because
it's definitely processed. But it's also not a burger
who's got more chew to it. It's not a burger at all. I was joking about this being a McSteak. This is a McSteak. It eats exactly like a McRib, which is a pleasant thing that I enjoy. But it's a McSteak. It's a McSteak. I think this tastes good. I do too. Despite all the things
that we did it to it, this tastes nice. Despite how horrified I was looking at it while it was in the oven, this is good. It's a nice thing in your mouth. It's a good fast food steak sandwich. Do you think that McDonald's should actually bring this back? Yes. You do? Yeah, I want them to. Why? I don't know 'cause I don't really, I mean the McRib's kind of average to me. That's very, you think that the McSteak
can replace the McRib? I think the McSteak
could replace the McRib. I don't think it has any market. I don't think it has any
market to bring back. What are they, are they
getting like the businessman, the Wall Street type to come
in and get the steak sandwich? No, who's going to order this? McDonald's, the future is in chicken from McDonald's and in 99 cent items. I don't wanna hear this negativity. But that said. So you're thinking that
there's an actual market for this in a limited time run? Yeah. That's fine. I accept that, Trevor. I accept that. Especially I'm just excited that you're excited
about history, you know? And this is a piece of history. If you think that McDonald's should bring back the onion nuggets and chopped beefsteak sandwich, Tweet @McDonalds with #PastFood and they're going to be like, what are you talking about? You're gonna be like a
chopped beefsteak sandwich! And they're going to be like, I'm a 26-year-old social media manager. That was made in 1979. What do you want from me? I'm going to be there
lurking in the background just going yes, yes, do it, do it. Do it. Do it. Thanks so much for stopping
by the Mythical Kitchen. Got new episodes for you every week. We got new episodes of our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. Hit us up on Instagram @mythicalkitchen with pictures of your mythical dishes under #dreamsbecomefood. This is still the onion cup. See you all next time. Hey, use your head and get the new Mythical headband. Available now at mythical.com.
I had breakfast for McDonald’s when that came out today what coincidence lol