Hot Roast Beef Poor Boys

[buttoni]

My dinner tonight was a trip down memory lane for me. It's one of my all-time comfort foods over the years and I thought I'd add it to my website for anyone not familiar with this way to have roast beef. Not many ingredients here, but the marriage and slow-cooking performs a tenderizing and flavor-enhancing miracle on a fairly tough cut of beef.

When I was just a wee lass, age 4-5, my father was stationed in Springfield, Illinois. During out stay there, with some regularity, my folks would order these incredibly delicious hot beef poor boy sandwiches from a little Italian restaurant known then as Twins’ Corner. It wasn’t very far from our house, actually. I have since discovered on-line that it is now called Saputo Twins’ Corner. It has been operated continuously by the Saputo family since 1948. These poor boy sandwiches were so good, and so popular, you had to order them early in the day to insure you would get one and at that, STILL had to wait in line when you went to pick them up at lunch or dinner! But they were well worth every minute you had to wait! They would just melt in your mouth!!! As the delicious juices permeated the homemade chewy Italian hoagie roll, they would be fairly messy to eat, but who cared? They were so good! The beef was slow-simmered all day long to render it so tender no chewing was needed really. I was shredded up in the very liquid is was cooked in. Mmmmm …….that flavor has remained with me to this day. I have come up with my version of that sandwich and find it VERY close to the original at Twins Corner, other than the fact that I must serve mine on a low-carb roll, above it is shown on two of my 5″ long hoagie/hot dog buns. Most low-carb buns will not support the juice for picking it up with your hands, unfortunately, and therefore will likely require a fork. You may want to serve them open-faced for this reason. But who cares when they are THIS good? Provided they are served on an Induction-friendly low-carb sandwich bun, these poor boys will be a wonderful addition to your Induction menu rotations. You’ll see by the nutritional stats below this is a VERY nutritious dish, providing major amounts of many needed nutrients.

Personally, I would not recommend cooking this in a crock pot. I ditched my two because I never ate anything I cooked in them I liked. Just not very fond of them. But if you want to try using one here, be certain the crock pot is big enough to totally cover the meat and veggies with water and stay covered with water until the end of cooking. The last thing you want is for all the juice in this to evaporate away. I have done this dish in a pressure cooker a couple of times, but again, it wasn’t as good as the slow, half-day cooking method in a regular old stew pot. Here’s what mine looks like in the pot, so you can see the level of water you want to maintain at all times during cooking:


INGREDIENTS:

3 lb. chuck roast, trimmed of major fat
2 T. olive oil
1 large onion, sliced (mine was 6 oz.)
2 c. celery, diced large
¼ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
Water to just cover meat (add more as needed)
Thickener of your choice

DIRECTIONS: Trim off any major fat bands off the outside of your chuck roast. Heat olive oil in a deep Dutch oven or soup pot (mine is non-stick). Brown meat well on both sides on high heat. I like to cut my roast into 3 smaller pieces to speed up cooking, but it is not really necessary. Add to the pot the sliced onion and celery. Pour enough water over all the ingredients to just cover. Add salt and pepper and bring to a full boil. Lower fire to just a gentle simmer, cover and cook for about 4 hours (5 hours if you don’t cut the roast into 3 smaller pieces) or until the meat is literally beginning to fall apart when tested with a fork. Now break up the meat into nice, small pieces, some shreds. See the pic above. I don’t like to reduce it totally to shreds, as I find that to be a bit visually off-putting after reheating leftovers. Just my personal hang-up there, so you can shred it up however you like. While low heat is still on the meat, add a little of your favorite dry thickener to just slightly thicken the liquid surrounding the meat. I use a few sprinkles of xanthan gum stirred in until the liquid surrounding the meat is just barely thickened. It is not supposed to be as thick as beef gravy, however.

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 8 servings (possibly more). 1/8 batch of the meat mixture contains: (numbers below do NOT include the roll you choose)

254 calories
7.09 g fat
2.54 g carbs, .69 g fiber, 1.85 g NET CARBS
38.3 g protein
682 mg potassium
23 mg sodium
66% RDA Vitamin B6, 125% B12, 22% copper, 41% iron, 14% magnesium, 60% niacin, 51% phosphorous, 25% riboflavin, 86% selenium, 14% thiamin and 122% zinc

[Vilya]

OMG, this looks divine, and super easy to make! Right up my alley. Thanks for posting it!

[Nigel]

Wow!! That looks beautiful.
Is that an oopsie roll it is on?

[buttoni]

I'm convinced if stewed beef doesn't have celery and onion in it, it's just "boiled beef". With them, it's pure heaven.

Nigel, that's my slightly modified oopsie Hot Dog Bun recipe on my website. This batch, I added 1 tsp. of gluc to them and you can see the result. I think the gluc added a little nicer texture and made the surface look as you see (less shiny) and will use it in them from now on, I think.

[Nigel]

Thanks Peggy.

[daisyHair]

I was just checking that out on your blog... I am going to be making that next week!
YUM.

[buttoni]

You guys are gonna get addicted to this stuff once you try it. DH and I just can't get enough of it when I do a batch. DH often puts leftovers on steamed rice, which he calls "bulley beef" (military mess jargon, I believe). I've even served it on noodles (shirataki or Dreamfields), too. But it's BEST on the wonderful rolls IMO.

[Ginaaaaaa]

I'm making this today!! Thanks for sharing!! ')

[Ginaaaaaa]

I am sitting here eating this right now..it's yummy. I made your rolls to go with it. It's actually how I make beef stew only I would add carrots and potatoes.

Leftovers will be good!! I always loved leftovers beef stew too.

[buttoni]

So glad you like that, Gina. It IS a lot like beef stew, just cooked down a lot more, and carrot/potato-less, of course.