A recent thread about Italian Beef inspired me to give it a go. I had a roasting piece of beef in the fridge and people to feed so I looked up a few recipes. You know - “I used to get Italian Beef from XXXXX when I lived in Chicago and this recipe is just like it.”
I made up an amalgam of the recipes and cooked the beef in a crockpot, made up the giardiniera but avoided the disgusting wetting routine by reducing the jus and spooning it over.
The main thing is that it was terrific. We greedily devoured all of it.
Now I need to move on. I am sure that I have seen a Doper post that he makes the best Philly Cheesesteak, better then Pat’s or Geno’s. I don’t believe it involved spray-on cheeses which is a plus.
Anyhow let’s have ‘em, home recipes as good as the real thing for your regional delicacy.* Po’ Boy *maybe (love James Lee Burke). Or a Sloppy Joe (what the hell is that) that Roseanne served. I have also come across, in Florida fiction, *The Cuban *.
Please personalize all these and add any others my readings have missed.
Sloppy Joe. They really aren’t all that great.
Do you have access to a Little Italy so you can get high-quality bread and cold cuts? If not, you won’t be able to make subs or pork roll sandwiches.
Ditto for a coal-fired pizza oven if you’re thinking about real NYC-style pizza.
ETA: A Po’ Boy is really a class of sandwiches. (As a NJ native, I think of them as subs with bread that isn’t as good as the stuff you get at home.) And a cuban sandwich is a sub with mustard that’s then been squashed.
Forgot to add the link during the edit window: Pork roll.
Another local specialty (this time from upstate NY) that you probably wouldn’t be able to replicate due to lack of ingredients is the “Texas Hot” (a little bitty hot dog with a mild chili sauce). Served, for example, at Famous Lunch.
The point is that a lot of regional specialty foods are regional because the ingredients aren’t available elsewhere. I really am trying to come up with ideas for local foods from the areas I’m familiar with for you to experiment with, but the ingredients really are an issue.
I mean, shoofly pie is a possibility, but that’s kinda gross.
Okay, here’s a recipe that might work for you. Hopefully you’ll be able to find the main ingredients. This recipe dates back at least to the early 1950s.
New York style cheesecake
1 pound cottage cheese (small curd)
1 pound cream cheese
1 pint sour cream
1.5 cup sugar
4 large eggs
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Let the dairy products come up to room temperature.
Use an electric mixer to beat the cottage cheese until creamy. Add the cream cheese and mix well. Beat each egg (in a separate bowl), then add it to the mixture and blend well after each. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
Cover the outside of a 10-inch springform pan with aluminum foil (in case mixture leaks). Pour the batter into the pan. (I recommend pouring it through a strainer; even with all the beating, there will still be a few small lumps left from the cream cheese. You’ll want to use a rubber spatula to help work the batter through the strainer.)
Bake for 1 hour (DO NOT open the oven door during this timeframe), then turn off the oven and leave the cake in for at least another 2 hours.
I’ve noticed that the cake has a tendency to crack, but I don’t get too worked up about it.
Real cheesecake doesn’t have a graham-cracker crust, BTW.
I started a thread a few months ago in which I queried Dopers about how to make a proper Loose Meat Sandwich, as made famous by Roseanne. I was quickly corrected that the proper nomenclature was a Maid Rite and then was given a recipe:
Fry up ground beef and chopped onion together, breaking it up, until the pink is cooked out. Add some chicken broth and a dash of Worcestershire sauce, and salt and pepper, and let it simmer until most of the liquid is evaporated away. Serve on toasted burger buns with mustard, ketchup and pickles.
We have this about twice a month now at our house.
If you want to unlock some secrets of famous regional sandwiches, like the Italian Beef and Po’ Boy, I highly recommend Rick Sebak’s (PBS WQED Pisttsburgh), “Sandwiches That You Will Like”. If you watch this segment from the show closely you will find the secrets to a New England Lobster Roll and authentic New Orleans Po’ Boy Sandwiches.
The Po’ Boy needs a generous amount of fresh shrimp or oysters, deep fried and breaded in a simple and light flour and cornmeal coating, a special 3 ft. baguette (not too crusty), Louisiana hot sauce, ketchup, mayonaise, or beef gravy, and a bit of shredded lettuce and pickle. That’s it. (Apparently you need a Barq’s Root beer in a glass bottle to round everything out ,as well.)
Watching the entire program, I also learned the secret to Mr. Beef’s Italian beef and jus is Garlic Juice.