Philly Cheese Steaks

I have decided to start blogging, because I am consistently talking in an excited manner about my culinary “creations.”  Many of my friends share this passion with either their own culinary adventures or their enjoyment of consuming other’s culinary creations.  This blog came about over the past few years, because I have been making Sunday dinners to enjoy while watching some HBO show.  Starting at the beginning of this year, I have sought to use more healthy ingredients and still make something edible.  Of course, this first blog has few, if any, of the healthy ingredients I speak of.  This creation came from Emily’s suggestion that we make Philly cheese steaks over a campfire when we were supposed to camp last.  The National Park Services decided, however, that wood and charcoal fires for cooking were not a good idea in the Arizona desert, so we were unable to enjoy that experience.  As such, I have morphed it into what would hopefully be a delicious meal.

The overall purpose of this blog is to appeal to my friends at all levels of culinary enjoyment.  There will be a mix of culinary logic, how to, and the occasional drunken metaphor to describe the experience.  Without further adieu, I say thank you for reading, I welcome your comments, and I hope you enjoy what follows.

This week’s course: Philly cheese steak, sweet potato fries, and bleu cheese coleslaw.

Wine inspiration: Inversion IPA, from Bend, Oregon.  (This will usually be a wine selection that is not necessarily meant to pair with the meal, but rather with the preparation of the meal.  Why should you drink wine when cooking?  Well, if the meal turns into a complete disaster, at least you had fun messing it up.)  The ideal beer to pair with a philly steak is actually a week old opened can of PBR (that’s how you explain most sports fans in Philadelphia).  No one is Arizona sells such a delicacy, so I chose this instead.

Main Course: Cheese steak with charred poblanos, porter braised mushrooms and onions, and caramelized shallot mayo

Emily’s Expression: “It was a flavorgasm.”

I started caramelizing the shallots.  I hate caramelizing onion-type things, because it seems so easy, but I always feel like they end up burning, despite constant watch.  Of course, this was no exception, but they did end up partially golden and partially very brown.  Maybe that’s the carmelzing idea, but they did taste delicious and do the trick in the mayo.  I used the same pan to brown the mushrooms and onions, because I knew braising the veggies would actually take the most amount of time of all the preparations.  Mushrooms gain most of their flavor from cooking and onions’ flavor deepens and the possible harshness evaporates.  I also seasoned the vegetables with a little salt and pepper.  Salt prevents onions from browning as fast allowing them to grow tenderer.  Once the vegetables were lightly browned, I transferred them to a stock pot and poured in about 2/3 of the porter and a little more salt and pepper.  I turned up the heat until the beer was boiling, then turned the heat down to medium low for the alcohol and liquid to boil away, leaving only the chocolate maltiness in the vegetables.

While the braising was taking place behind my back, I quickly made the mayo.  I always like to make any type of sauce with as much sitting time as possible.  It makes sense to me that those ingredients need time for the flavors to meld (kind of like how letting the rage from past relationships melds into a good sense of humor; however, I do not recommend letting your sauces age for multiple years).  So I took my caramelized shallots and chopped them up really fine, stirred them into some olive oil based mayonnaise with 2 dashes of hot sauce.  A nice flavorful spread for the bread.  Yep, I said that. 

I started on the poblanos next.  I used poblanos, because I hate green peppers.  Poblanos have a little more heat and little less of that earthy-grassiness overwhelming in green peppers.  Cutting the pepper on its sides makes seeding unnecessary and you are left with 4 semi-equal pepper pieces.  I put them on a cooking sheet under the broiler (or on the grill), took a few sips of beer (shots can be done at this point depending on your confidence level) and once the skin began to blister and blacken, I turned the peppers over until heated thoroughly through the other side. 

Finally, I could get to the beef – where the real fun began.  I chose to use a dry-aged ribeye steak, mostly because it was on sale.  I think Ribeye makes the best shaved beef, and there was only 1 place near me that has the capability to shave raw beef.  It’s a gourmet food store, which I think would be better marketed as a “you’re really old and have lots of money, so we’ll let you way over pay for something that sounds really awesome, but doesn’t make much difference in the long run” store.  This is why I would have failed at a marketing career.  I think the key to a cheese steak (besides great bread) is tender beef.  Ribeye is the most marbled of all cuts of beefs, so when it’s shaved for sandwiches, it will always be tender.  I could have used a leaner cut of meat, like sirloin or NY strip, but it could have ended up being chewy.  About 30 minutes before cooking, I splattered it with Worcestershire sauce. 

...but I do not recommend Worcestershire shots. 
I’m convinced that Worcestershire will only help any type of cooked beef by making it more moist and more flavorful...almost good enough to eat right there and then. 

I threw that mound of meat into a sauté pan with salt, pepper, and fresh garlic, and cooked it for about 3-4 minutes mixing as needed for (almost) perfectly cooked beef.  When the beef was just about done, I folded (“threw”) in the mushrooms, onions, and peppers which made me think my cheese steak was now healthier.  I topped the filled hoagie bun with pre-packaged deli sliced provolone and put the sandwich under the broiler until just starting to brown.  It looked like something I would eat, so I did. 

Side dishes: Baked sweet potato fries with parmesan and bleu cheese coleslaw

Emily cut up 1 massive sweet potato into steak fry-sized pieces.  We tossed around ideas of other uses for the interestingly shaped sweet potato, but I will leave that for someone else’s blog.  We tossed the pieces in a bowl with some olive oil, salt, and pepper.  I spread the pieces in a single layer on a cookie sheet and baked them in the oven for about 25 minutes, give or take and turned them once.  When they were just about cooked all the way through, I changed the oven setting from bake to broil to give the baked fries a little bit of crispiness.  However, I learned that baked fries can go from “almost awesome” to burned in a window of 7 seconds.  As soon as I rescued the vast majority from the overwhelming electric broiler, I threw ‘em back in that first mixing bowl and sprinkled them with some parmesan.  Ta da – gourmet baked fries that are crispy, and yeah, I used a little bit of oil, but 1 Tbs compared to the usual 1 Vat necessary for crisp fries.

For the coleslaw, I made the dressing first, but did not add the cabbage and carrots.  If you want to ensure those stay crispy, you want to wait until the last possible minute before combining with the dressing.  So after all the not-so-healthy deliciousness, here is where I finally pull a little calorie trick.  The dressing is made with fat-free yogurt, white balsamic vinegar, and blue cheese crumbles.  Add a little salt and pepper, and you have a low-fat, low-cal slaw dressing that I made in less than 2 minutes.  I’d love to tell you I spent the remaining time chopping cabbage and carrots, but why do that when you can buy it already cut up and in a smaller size than a human head? 

So there you have it.  Philly cheese steaks with 2 moderately healthy sides on 1 delicious plate.  Let me know your thoughts.  I realize after reading this that it is a bit “instructive,” my next entry will not be so.  Apologies until next week.  I’m not sure what I’m making yet, but I’m thinking some kind of fish.  I’m looking to see what’s on sale and besides, I have to get back to that healthy stuff.