Thirty Minute Thursdays: Italian "These-Ain't-Philly" Steak Sandwiches

I have a secret to tell you, but before I do, you have to promise that you won’t point, laugh, and shun me for it. I can’t handle having to sport a branded letter on my arm, signifying to the world the truth. You see, I have this thing. With red meat. No, not making sure it’s grass fed. I mean, yes, there’s that, but that almost sounds normal compared with this other thing. This thing that’s totally bizarre-o and so not appropriate for a gourmand foodie such as myself (don’t laugh). Here goes…

If you sit me down at a table and place 2 plates in front of me, one showcasing a $35 perfectly cooked steak dinner and the other featuring a big, juicy, $5 homecooked burger…I will turn a cold shoulder to that steak before you can even say, “and how would you like your steak cooked, madam?” I actually don’t like steak, and trust me, I have had some really top notch cuts in my life. It makes only eating grass-fed beef much more affordable and manageable, since I can watch people eating steaks left and right and not get jealous, and I don’t burn a hole in my wallet trying to ethically satisfy some red meat craving all the time.

The fact that I don’t really like steak very much means something else: I basically never cook it. I barely know how. I’ve handled raw red meat I think twice in my life, and one of them was just last week. I’m a total amateur, but that’s ok. Because if I can conquer the red-meated beast, so can you. And I even went first, so you get to learn from all of my silly mistakes.

Mistake #1: Believing that you can at a whim stop by your local Whole Foods market and find the exact cut of beef that you need…in grass-fed form. Result: what was originally intended to be a Memorial Day cook out was postponed until Whole Foods’ next shipment came in…2 days later.

Mistake #2: Believing the recipe when it tells you that after 5 brief minutes per side, your full steak will not be an absolute bloody mess when you cut into it. Put that thing back on the grill, seriously! (As a side note, I know people who actually would’ve loved how rare – virtually uncooked – the meat was at this time interval, so if you’re one of those people, ignore this. If you like your meat more towards medium-rare, maybe 7 minutes per side. And if you like it well-done…just slice the darn thing and cook it that way. You’ll save yourself a ton of grief.)

Ok, so really, that’s not so bad, right? I also made a few really fantastic judgment calls when making these sandwiches. First, I decreased the amount of meat called for in general – ½ pound per person is just ridiculous, especially for a sandwich. I went with 1.5lb for 4 people and even then had leftovers – I think this sandwich is intended to be piled high with meat, and that’s just not my (or my family’s) style. Ok, it’s a little bit my family’s style, but they were following my lead and I made my sandwich first. Ha!

Overall, this is a good sandwich. I don’t know if it’s phenomenal enough to warrant Rachael Ray’s title, “Tony Soprano’s Steak Sandwich.” I mean, those are big shoes for a sandwich to fill. Still, it was tasty; I think it just needed one more element to really put it over the top. I also secretly think that turning it into burger form would make it even better, but shh! The Red Meat Snobs are going to bludgeon me for such blasphemy, so let’s keep that little recommendation between us.

You could buy jarred giardiniera for the relish, as the recipe states, but then why would you, when 100 pages later in the exact same cookbook she teaches you how to make your own? Just don’t make the whole thing – the recipe said it made 1 quart, and the sandwiches called for 1 quart – but one of those two yields was way off because I’ve basically been eating leftover giardiniera for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a week straight and still have about a cup left. The recipe below makes the full batch, but I’m pretty sure you could halve it and still have enough to pile 4 sandwiches to the sky with it. I found the recipe to be a little bit too sweet, but I’ve left the sugar content alone because I don’t know how much you could reduce it without affecting the pickling ability of the solution. And it’s really only too sweet when you eat big spoonfuls on its own (really, I wasn’t kidding, I made way too much…); on the sandwich it adds a nice balance to the savory steak.

So maybe this isn’t Tony Soprano’s steak sandwich, but I liked it, my dad liked it (ok my dad had his without any veggies and with ketchup, but he’s a Philadelphian, can you blame him?), L liked it, my mom liked it. It may not be mob-approved, but it’s certainly us-approved, and as I said before…I don’t even like steak! I mean…what?