Chicago Style Italian Beef Sandwiches

G has been eating Italian Beef Sandwiches his entire life really. And making Italian beef  has been one of those things G has done with his buddies long since before I met him. Actually before meeting G I don't think I'd ever had an Italian Beef...it's clearly a Chicago thing. And the first time I ever had an authentic Italian Beef sandwich in Chicago I immediately got why he and his pals were determined to recreate it at home. It's something you just really can't get here in Washington. But now we've even got my family hooked.

There are a few places that now serve it that we've found locally...but it's never quite the same. So for us at home it's either wait until our next trip to Chicago (which have been too long and inbetween lately), have them Fed Ex'd from Portillo's in Chicago (we do this at least twice a year) or make them our self.
Which G is always trying to perfect.

Three things have helped our at home version taste closer to the real thing.

1) A Christmas gift of a meat slicer last year...you just can't cut the beef thin enough with a knife. And thin beef is essential.

2) A recipe that we found in Saveur Magazine that makes the flavors pretty spot on. We do add a lot more garlic & onion powder to the recipe though.

3) Finding a brand of giardiniera that has that perfect Chicago mix of peppers.

The one thing that still perplexes us is being able to find the "just right" roll. The rolls are essential too. It cannot be too soft or it just disintegrates to nothing. It can't too tough or it doesn't soggy enough. For now we've been using fresh French rolls but they aren't exactly, 100% the perfect texture.

Here's the link to the Saveur recipe that's become our at home version to make Italian Beef at home. It's a great superbowl treat...pretty sure it will be ours again.