For some reason, this Iowa-born sandwich is intriguing me and I want to try making some at home. I’m bored with hamburgers and want to have another option for using ground beef at dinner.
Googling turns up a bunch of recipes, but I’m not sure which sounds authentic. How about it, Iowans (and other midwest Dopers)? What are the guidelines? For instance, should the mixture be wet and smooshy or dry and crumbly? Should it be well-seasoned or very plain? What do you serve with it? A little guidance would be very much appreciated.
There are so many variations that you could spend years trying them all. The basic model I know is from the Made-Rite chain, which is browned hamburger with some chopped onion added. Drain, then add a little A-1 sauce, a little Worchestershire, salt and pepper to taste, and serve on hamburger buns. Should be drier rather than wetter. Dress with ketchup, mustard and pickle slices.
Here’s how my old Catholic school made burger last five days. MON-Hamburgers, TUE- Loose meat sandwiches, WED-Bar,B,Q Sandwiches, THR-Sloppy Joe’s, FRI Goulash
Mmm, sloppy joes. I haven’t had one in decades but used to love them as a kid. But a sloppy joe is defined by its sauce, whereas an Iowa loosemeat sandwich has none.
Yeah, a Maid-Rite™ is definitely not a sloppy joe. They’re good sandwiches and I hate that term “loose meat” but I understand why it’s used (Damn you Roseanne!)
I always thought they were the same but then I’ve never been to Iowa and since the OP was asking for Iowans specifically I probably should have kept my yapper shut.
My people make them with Campbell’s chicken gumbo soup. It sounds odd, but they’re quite tasty. One and a half to two pounds of hamburger, browned, add the soup (no water), and stir it up. The soup helps the meat hold together.
A friend had a restaurant and served an excellent beefburger (that’s another word for it). She refused to give me the recipe. When she sold the restaurant, I asked her again. She still wouldn’t give it to me. (Bitch.) She said it was too complicated to scale down for home use. Some of the ingredients – chicken stock, eggs, and baking powder (!).
Mom made hers with hamburger meat and chili beans.
You mean she invented the term “loose meat”? I thought that was the proper nomenclature, but then again, I was born and raised in California. I never heard of the term “Maid-Rite” until today.
While people are certainly correct that wetter is sloppier and sometimes melts the bun before you’re done, it’s a risk worth taking. Eat faster! Eat more!! And they’re all good. I’ll have to try AuntiePam’s gumbo-soup recipe; that’s a new one for me. But in the end, wet or dry, spicy or mild, on bread or on buns or on rolls, with or without condiments added to the sandwich…my response is “Yes, please!”
I think so. I grew up with maid-rites and never heard the term “loose meat” until Roseanne. I figure she used it because of copyright issues. We called them maid-rites, no matter where we bought them. The Maid-Rite chain was dead when I moved back here in 1990, and people were calling them beefburgers.
What I’d like to find is the recipe for the meat sauce that the local tavern used for their coneys. The sauce tasted like mustard but it was a brown sauce, very spicy and tart.
“Loose meat” was used as a term for the sandwich as early as 1951. It was also referred to(in Sioux City and other places) as a “tavern.” So, Roseanne certainly didn’t originate the name. And a feature to the hamburger was that it was steamed(or boiled), not fried. But most folks in those early days just called it a maidrite.
I’d also never heard “loose meat” until Roseanne so I figured they came up with the name. We always called them Maid rites too, wherever they came from.
So I’m confused, is it the same as a sloppy joe with just less sauce? Or the same as a hamburger if you just took ground beef and mixed in one or two things? I’m so confused!
From watching a special on the Taylor maidrite sandwich I have gleaned some important information about the sandwich…
First, the burger is ground fresh on the premises from whole beef quarters front and rear, which means the hamburger meat is different than any ground beef you might get in the store. It is leaner and contains all the cuts and primals of the beef. It is “whole cow sausage”, so to speak which is absolutely unavailable in stores as far as I know. I’m thinking ground sirloin might make a passable substitute.
The loosemeat is cooked in a special massive “cooker”, it’s the original one from the twenties when the restaurant first opened. There is nothing added to the beef, not even salt and pepper. Each bun contains 1/3 pound of the loosemeat and it is served with a spoon for the overflow.
To answer your question, the meat appear rather coarse ground and is loose and crumbly, not wet at all.
I usually make these sandwiches from left-over hamburger that has been browned. Just take the meat from the fridge, heat until very warm, and pile on a bun with ketchup and mustard. No add-ins at all, usually. Maybe a bit of onion. Freshly cooked hamburger just isn’t quite right for this sandwich.
