Meathead's smoked Italian beef

[Kneab]

I recently watched a video on YouTube from Chud's bbq where he visited Chicago. His Uber driver took him to Johnnie's beef in Elmwood park, which is my favorite Italian beef stand. Followed by Gene and Jude's, which is also my favorite hot dog stand. Then he met up with Omnivorous Adam and kept taking about smoked Italian beef This took me down a rabbit hole that I didn't know existed that ended with me watching Malcom Reed smoking Italian beef following a recipe from the Amazing ribs website. Needless to say after watching Malcom make it I had to try my hand at it. I smoked the meat for about 2½ hrs on the Summit over a pan of Aujus till it reached 130° then let it rest before putting it and the juice in the fridge separately for about 24 hrs. Today I sliced the meat as thin as I could and submerged it in the crockpot full of hot aujus to reheat it. It wasn't Johnnie's, but I will definitely be making this again. Also made some cheese and Italian sausage stuffed cherry peppers on the Genesis while making fries. Thanks for looking.



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[michaelmilitello]

Nicely done sir!  It's a fun process to make you're own.   I saw the same Chuds video and it made me smile!    Eaten at the original Johnnies many times. 


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[RRRanger99]

Looks delicious!

[getlego]

There is nothing like Chicago style beef and sausage and pizza. I here stories of people leaving the Chicago area and can't find these foods. I've just always taken it for granted. Someone with some skills could make a fortune spreading this around to other states. It's just the best stuff.




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[bladz]

Looks fantastic!


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[JEBIV]

looks awesome to me !!

[michaelmilitello]

There is nothing like Chicago style beef and sausage and pizza. I here stories of people leaving the Chicago area and can't find these foods. I've just always taken it for granted. Someone with some skills could make a fortune spreading this around to other states. It's just the best stuff.




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The proliferation of Portillos across the Midwest is a blessing and a curse.   We can get beef in Indianapolis now but the quality isn't what it was imho.   Portillos is able to make it work because their menu is fairly large.  Most places in Chicago are simple beef, hot dogs, and fries.   That doesn't work outside Chicago.


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[SixZeroFour]

That looks and sounds really good!

[Big Dawg]

That is one d@mn good looking plate ! ! !

I've never had the Chicago Beef, but have always heard good things about it. 

On the other hand, I grew up with Nick's Roast Beef in So. Philly.  As far as I'm concerned, Nick's is far and away better than anything from either Gino's or Pat's.

Now, if I could find that recipe . . .





BD

[getlego]

One of the best times I ever had in Chicago was getting a Maxwell Street polish. Back in the day Maxwell st. Was a weekend flea market. Blues musicians used to plug their amps into the store fronts on summer nights (way before my time). The university of Illinois tore it all down to put up housing. The only thing that remained were the two shacks that sold food. I can't remember the names but anyone on the south side would know them. It had a walk up window with nowhere to eat. The smells were amazing !!! Anyone from cops to nurses and students, detectives, blue collar workers, you name it would line up for the food. Rain or shine, winter or summer you'd stand outside to order your food. Why??? Because it was just so good. I think the menu was polish sausage, burgers or chicken breast sandwiches. They had sodas in cans in an iced downed cooler. The one part I never understood was they used some sort of green hot pepper. It was about the size of a jalapeño and nobody ever ate them. They were all over the neighborhood because people would Chuck them out their car windows. I noticed even the pigeons wouldn't touch them.

My fondest memory of that place is one day I went to get lunch and a gentleman was selling porno tapes and new socks on the corner. I had had to think , what a wonderful spot in the world this is lol.

Somewhere on YouTube some foodie made a long video of that place from the inside of them cooking all the food with just the sounds. Oh man, I can still dream of the huge pile of grilled onions on the flat top. I'm thinking maybe that was a pork chop they did. I always went for the polish with onions. I could dig up the link if anyone was interested.


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