Tailgate Thursday - Temple Edition

Temple is in town, for a football game, what should we make?  What should we make?  Duh.

I take mine whiz-wit-out thank you very much.

On to the steaks…

Ingredients

24  thinly-sliced rib-eye steaks, each sliced slightly less than 1/4" thick

8  tablespoons salted butter

1  1/2-2  pounds halved and very thinly sliced yellow or sweet onion

1  pound stemmed, cleaned and thinly sliced white mushroom caps

12  ounces green bell pepper, cut into 1/4" strips, strips cut in half

12  ounces red bell pepper, cut into 1/4" strips, strips cut in half

salt and pepper

3  cups marinara sauce, preferably homemade, or your favorite brand

1/2  teaspoon red pepper flakes, more or less (optional) for adding to sauce

cheeses of choice:  top picture (above) shows provolone & Cheez Whiz

12  6"-7" long Italian rolls, the best available, toasted or untoasted, your choice

Step 1.  This really isn't a step for you, it is a step for your butcher!  Ask him incredibly nicely (or bribe him) to cut some rib-eye steak to a thickness of slightly less than 1/4".   

Plan on needing three of these thin-sliced rib-eye steaks per sandwich, or four if you are not adding veggies to the mix.

Step 2.  Stack the COLD rib-eyes (I do this four at a time), then slice them into 1/2" strips.  They slice faster and easier if the meat is very cold.  Since I'm making cheese steaks on the stovetop and not on a flat top grill, chopping them into bits and pieces after the fact just does not work well.  This being said, if you want your meat to remain in whole pieces, that is up to you.

Step 3.  I'm adding sliced onions, mushrooms, green and red bell peppers to my meat mixture.  I like to prep them (as directed below) and add them to a very large food storage bag as I work.  You can even do this step a day ahead and keep the veggies in the refrigerator until you are ready to cook/make the sandwiches.  [ED: Secretly my mother is a Communist, vegetables on a Philly Steak, yuk.  Every pepper you put on this steak you actually makes Andy Reid cry]

Step 4.  Melt butter in skillet over low heat.  Today, I melted 1 stick of butter in a 14" chef's pan because I am making 12 sandwiches.  Lightly sprinkle salt and pepper evenly over the meat.

Step 5.  Increase heat to medium-high and saute, until steak has lost all of its red color and just cooked through, about 15 minutes, stirring frequently.

Step 6.  Add/spread the bagged vegetables evenly over the meat [ED: Or don’t, just sayin’].  Lightly sprinkle the veggies with salt and pepper.  Thoroughly fold the seasoned vegetables into the cooking steak.  Continue to saute, stirring frequently, until vegetables are very soft and...

Step 7.   ...only  a small coating of liquid remains in bottom of skillet.  This will take anywhere from 20-40 minutes, depending on what kind of vegetables you added and how many of them.

Step 8.  Stir in the "steak sauce".  In my kitchen that is my recipe for My Fresh & Spicy Tomato-Basil Sauce (Marinara).

To this point, feel free to make the cheese steak filling 1-2-3 days in advance of serving, and, like many things, it actually tastes even better if made ahead of time.

As always, feel free to come on over to Kitchen Encounters and find the recipe for Philly Cheese Cake as well as some other great content.  Keep in mind tomorrow is Q&A Friday, thanks and good eatin’.

Finally, I’ll be in the Orange lot tomorrow burning Bill Cosby in effigy and eating cheese steaks.  Just sayin’.