Recipe: Badass Beef Sandwich

This started as a neat idea and ended as a religious experience*. Try this beef sandwich, and your world view probably will be altered.
* Offer does not apply to Hindus and vegetarians.

See the layers: the Gorgonzola top, the beefy middle, the oniony bottom, and the crispy/buttery roll. I think I'm going to cry... again. Notice the salad (added for health reasons)

INGREDIENTS

• Heat 'n eat sliced beef (like, 2+ lbs?)*
• 4 oz. Gorgonzola cheese
• 1/2 Cup Sour Cream
• 4 Medium Onions, cut into 1/4" half-rings
• Salt & pepper
• 1 Tablespoon Red Wine Vinegar
• Chicken Stock
• 1.5 teaspoons Sugar
• Italian Sandwich rolls
• Butter

INSTRUCTIONS

Onions 

Cooked onions will eventually become this color.

This means they are sweet and delicious.

1. Cut the onions in half (pole to pole) and then slice into 1/4" half-rings
2. In a medium saucepan, over medium heat, cook the onions in ~3 Tablespoons butter and 1 teaspoon salt until beginning to brown (~10 minutes)
3. Deglaze the pan with ~1/2 cup chicken stock. This will get the browned pieces of onion off the bottom of the saucepan AND chicken stock tastes good.
4. Continue to cook the onions until they get browner and more delicious (~20 more minutes)
5. Add ~1 Tablespoon vinegar and 1.5 teaspoons of sugar and stir to combine - cook for another 5-10 minutes.
6. Done. evacuate the onions from the pot (try a bowl, genius) and save for sandwich construction. Be sure to taste those onions - delicious, no?

Gorgonzola Spread

1. Pour the blue cheese into a bowl
2. Top with sour cream
3. Mash and stir: the goal is to make the cheese and sour cream into one glorious paste of deliciousness
4. Done. Save the spread until later.

Rolls

1. Cut the rolls in-half the long way (think hero sandwich, yo)
2. Spread the rolls with butter
3. Put the rolls, butter-side-down, on a hot griddle and cook. The goal is to add some buttery crunch to that bread. You may need to press-down on the rolls to get them to brown (see the mason jar in the pic)
4. Done, prepare to make sandwiches

Meat

1. You bought heat 'n eat meat for a reason: ease of preparation.
2. Heat yo meat, follow the instructions on the package. Usually it means heat until hot, but don't boil. Why no boil? Boiling will toughen your tender meat.
3. When done, turn-off the stove and get ready for admission to beefy heaven.

Assembly

1. Open your buttery Italian roll
2. On the bottom, spread some onion jam - OMIGOD, it's already awesome!
3. Top with meat - add some juice, I will allow it
4. Spread Gorgonzola spread on the other roll
5. Top your meat with the cheesy roll
6. Eat. Be sure to sit down - it's that good.
7. You're welcome.

Sandwich assembly station

Efficiency is badass!

FAQs

• Why not homemade Italian beef? >> That's a whole other recipe. Instead, I rely on my excellently sourced food purveyors here in the greater Chicagoland area. We have the finest foodstuffs the world has to offer, and they're all at my fingertips.

Vienna Beef. Excellent. Get some.

• No hot peppers? >> I made this last night and added hot giardinera. It was good, but a little too much for this sandwich. For a spicy beef sandwich, just do the beef, hot giardinera, and Provolone cheese. Baptize that sandwich in the au jus - a delicious Italian beef.

Badass Music to Cook By

Hey, fat kid, do yourself a favor: next time you're cooking, blast the stereo to something that will piss-off the neighbors:

Clutch

It's badass. Need a hint? Check-out Red Horse Rainbow

Recipe: Shrimp 'n Grits

Famous lowcountry fare, but I’m from Chicago – what up?

Shrimp 'n grits - green beans optional

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 Cups grits (I like ‘em yellow)
• 2 Cups heavy cream
• 2+ Cups chicken stock/broth
• 1 tsp Old Bay seasoning
• 8 oz cheese*, shredded
• 1 lb raw shrimp (31-40), peeled and deveined (31-40 means there are 31-40 shrimp per pound - your fishmonger knows all about this...)
• 1/3 Cup green onions, sliced on the bias (that means diagonally)
• 1/4 Cup red bell pepper, brunoised*
• 1 15 oz. can Diced tomato
• 1 stick (4 oz.) butter, cut-up into pieces
• Hot sauce
• Salt & pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

Grits

1. In a large stockpot, pour-in the chicken stock/broth and Old Bay seasoning and bring to a simmer. Add grits and heavy cream and whisk to combine. Cook until the liquid is absorbed and the grits have lost their graininess. If you use fine textured cornmeal, this will take a few seconds and you’ll be like, “WTF!?” If these are slow cooking grits, this will take 15-20 minutes.
2. When grits are complete, drop the heat, add the cheese, and stir to combine. Set aside.

Shrimp

1. In a nonstick sauté pan over medium high heat, add 2 tsp canola oil. Add the shrimp in one layer and cook for ~4 minutes, or until pink. Flip the shrimp, add the tomatoes, peppers, and green onions and cook for ~3 more minutes.
2. Turn-off the heat, add the butter and allow to melt. Add hot sauce to taste (oooo-e! that’s some spicy!). Stir to combine as one glorious topping.
3. Serve it up! Enjoy with some sweet tea, moonshine, or other southern drink.

HOW TO EAT

• Plop-down some grits on a plate and top with a generous spoonful of the shrimp. Be sure to get a lot of that buttery liquid: oh, that’s the stuff!

RECIPE NOTES

• Cheese? Why is there an asterisk next to the cheese? >> There are a lot of cheeses that will fit the bill here: sharp cheddar, mild cheddar, Havarti, etc. When I last made this, I use Havarti, and it was excellent. Any kind of cheesiness will be good – go with what you like.
• Seriously, brunoised? WTF? >> That’s a fancy French word for diced small and uniform. The red pepper dice needs to be small to ensure that the pieces cook quickly and look pretty. Pretty food is badass? Sure.
• A note on peeling and deveining shrimp >> Being from Chicago, there are no indigenous shrimp in my history – I had to learn like any of you people. It’s simple, really: 1. peel the shrimp (just rip-off the peel and tail – there’s no trick here), 2. with a sharp (and I mean SHARP) knife, insert gingerly into the concave portion of the shrimp (it’s belly, as it were) and cut the entire length, 3. While rinsing under cold water, free the vein and rinse it down the drain, and then 4. Drop your cleaned shrimp into a bowl of cold water. See? Easy.