The Master Sandwich

We had a disaster on Christmas Day. My wife refused to eat prime rib.

It wasn’t really prime, but still.

About 10 days before Christmas, I bought a rib roast on sale, and I covered it with salt, butter, and fresh garlic. I let it sit in the fridge to age. Then I roasted it. It was perfect. I baked it at 550° until the outside had a crust, and then I dropped the heat to 215° and brought the internal temperature up to 110°. It was pink from end to end with a thin, tasty crust on the outside.

FDA guidelines give some ridiculous figure like 135° for a medium-rare roast. I think this happened because the Soviets injected all FDA officials with estrogen while they slept. Something is definitely wrong, because at that temperature, a roast is done medium-well.

I think 115° is probably better than 110°, though, so I plan to adjust in the future.

My wife thought the meat was rotten, so she only ate two bites. After that, she committed the sin of picking a lot of the bread-crumb crust off the top of the potatoes au gratin.

She’s still here, though.

I ended up with a lot of roast beef, so I started thinking about cheesesteaks.

I have never been to Pat’s, Geno’s, or Jim’s. I’ve been to DiConstanza’s, near Wilmington, and I’ve also been to a place on the south side of Philadelphia, where a guy I’m pretty sure was Danny DeVito worked the flattop. They both made great cheesesteaks, and I judge all others by their work.

I had a friend who lived in Delaware when I was in college. He was a Far Eastern Studies major. Sometimes we went to Chinatown together. He used to buy a steak sauce called Wan-Ja-Shan, which I can’t find now. I would say it looked like A1 but tasted a lot like soy sauce.

Let’s be honest. The Chinese only have two sauces: soy and pepper oil. All their other sauces are just variations. Dumpling sauce? Soy sauce with vinegar. Chili paste? Pepper oil with ground peppers. That’s how it goes. I guess things would be different if, thousands of years ago, they had had Americans to steal ideas from.

Okay, supposedly, ketchup has its roots in China. I grudgingly admit that.

I liked my cheesesteaks with onions, peppers, hot sauce, Wan-Ja-Shan, and a little ketchup. I don’t really care what Philadelphians might think. Look how they vote. Look at their city. My friend used to say Philadelphia was just like New York, only without any of the good parts.

I have missed good cheesesteaks. For some reason, no one outside of Pennsylvania seems to be able to make them, even though they’re very simple.

I’ve dabbled with cheesesteak creations. The best cheesesteak I ever had was a cheesesteak calzone. My invention. You shove the filling into pizza dough and bake it. You would not believe how good it is.

This week, I started watching videos about cheesesteaks to see if there was anything I didn’t know.

I saw some character from a popular place, pretending to teach people how to make cheesesteaks. He said some things so crazy, I found it hard to take him seriously. He said to cook the meat slowly in order to make it juicy. That’s bizarre, because it works the other way around. When you fry meat, you use a lot of heat to get it cooked before it dries up.

He also recommended Cheez Whiz. I hadn’t had this interesting product for many years, so I was willing to give him credit for knowing something I didn’t. Cheez Whiz is very popular in Philadelphia.

I got myself some Cheez Whiz, and last night, I made a cheesesteak. It wasn’t too good. Fluid kept running out of the lower end. It had a funky taste that reminded me of the smell of a boxing glove at an un-air-conditioned public gym. I actually know that smell.

Disappointing.

Today I tried over, and things went great. The sandwich was magnificent. It would have been better in calzone form, but it was really nice.

INGREDIENTS

roast beef, sliced very thinly, with the gristle and most fat removed
1 white or yellow onion, diced
pickled jalapeno slices, medium-hot or hotter
pickled sweet cherry peppers, sliced with the seeds discarded
American cheese
salt
soy sauce
French bread

SAUCE INGREDIENTS

4 parts ketchup
1 part Huy Fong chili garlic sauce (not sriracha)

It’s very simple. Nuke the fat from the beef and pour the resulting grease in a skillet. Fry the onions in it as much as you like. You can brown them a little or turn them completely brown. Throw the meat and peppers in. Salt everything and fry it on the highest heat that will work.

When the meat is getting nicely browned, throw the cheese in and mix it up in the meat.

You don’t want real French bread here. You want the soft, mushy stuff they used to call “French bread” back in the Seventies. Get a sub-sized piece and slice it open lengthwise. Open it wide and plop it on top of the frying meat mixture. Leave it for at least a minute so the bread gets steamed a little.

Put the meat stuff into the bread and apply a lot of the sauce. Then drizzle it with hoisin sauce. This is how you get a flavor like Wan-Ja-Shan. Squirt some hoisin on your plate for dipping.

That’s it. I really enjoyed it.

A Youtuber named Guga says media noche rolls are great for cheesesteaks. I don’t have any of those, however.

This sandwich was very juicy, but it didn’t pour mystery liquid all over my plate. Because I used American instead of Cheez Whiz, I didn’t have to contend with that, “We must have forgotten to wash the whites before we left for Rio” smell.

You could put fried mushrooms in it, or maybe Durkee onions.

It’s pretty degenerate, but at least you’re not eating Cheez Whiz. I threw that stuff out.