Grandma's Barbecue Beef Sandwich

We all have those specific foods that make us think of home and bring us back to better days. Foods that we grew up with, foods that give us comfort. No matter your age, cultural background, or the country in which you are born, we all have those specific foods that make us think of loved ones. For me it is my grandmother's barbecue beef sandwiches. My grandparents owned both a small country store in a small town called Etoile in East Texas, as well as a café and pool hall on highway 103 in Lufkin, Texas. Twice when my father was stationed in Korea during his 22 years in the Air Force we lived for a year each time with my grandparents.

One of the things that my grandmother served at her café was barbecue beef sandwiches. I remember watching her cook the beef all day along with the sauce just to get it ready for the restaurant. One summer when my father was overseas I think I ate her barbecue almost everyday at the café. It is still the food that brings back childhood memories of my grandparents who are now deceased. Many years back when my grandmother died, my mother found the index card that contained her original barbecue beef sandwich recipe and made a photocopy and send it to me.

Every time I make this barbecue I think of the goods times we had when we lived with my grandparents, and that no matter how many days in a row I ate this barbecue I never got tired of it. But that's how kids are, they get stuck on such foods and want to eat them constantly. For my grandkids it was chicken tenders, for me it was grandma's barbecue. In this article, I will share with you my grandmother's barbecue recipe for 'Chipped Barbecue Beef'. It is not a traditional barbecue sandwich as it is made with cheaper roast or beef stew meat as opposed to more expensive beef brisket, but the bold tangy sauce has made it a favorite among my family, and it is requested often.

The Meat

Back in the East Texas country where my grandmother lived, there were no barbecue joints. Etoile was a town of 300 people so brisket was not something that was readily available and I will be honest I never really knew what it was when I was growing up. For us barbecue was made from roast or beef stew meat (roast trimmings). My grandmother could get beef stew meat relatively cheaply from their meat supplier for her country store, so that was the meat of choice.

The Recipe

3 – 4lbs beef stew meat or roast cubed

2 (29 ounce cans) crushed tomatoes

1 cup white vinegar

¼ cup Worcestershire sauce

¼ cup sugar

5 cloves garlic, minced

2 medium onions, diced (enough for 2 cups)

2 tablespoons dry mustard

1 tablespoon salt

2 teaspoon chili powder

2 teaspoons black pepper

Dice onions and combine in batches with crushed tomatoes in your blender and puree until the two have been thoroughly combined. Then add them to a large Dutch oven with the other ingredients (except the beef) and cook until the sauce thickens (Reduce the sauce by about 1/4 of it's original volume). 

Once the beef is cooked, and shredded, then add the thickened sauce to your beef until you get the consistency that you like. My experience has been that I generally have about 1/3 cup more sauce than I need. I simply place it in the refrigerator and use it for something else, but grandma simply added the beef straight to the sauce. As I was quite young at the time, I never really learned to make the recipe from her, at eight years of age my focus was more on “is it done yet grandma” as opposed to learning the particular steps. So I thicken my sauce to my preference and simply add the sauce until it suits my particular taste. If I have a little left over no big deal.

Chef's Notes: While my grandmother boiled her beef for hours, I prefer to use my pressure cooker to cook the beef as it is a whole lot faster. Below I have included instructions on how to cook the beef using either method.

Stove Top Method For Cooking Beef

Trim the beef stew meat or roast of any extra fat and then cube (makes shredding the beef easier). Then place the beef in a Dutch oven or large stock pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer the meat until it is fork tender. When the beef is done to your satisfaction, then drain the water off the meat then shred with a fork or other utensil and add the sauce.

Pressure Cooker Method

Trim the beef stew meat or roast of any extra fat and then cube (makes shredding the beef easier). Then add the cubed beef and 1 ½ cups of water to your pressure cooker and process for 60 minutes at 15lbs of pressure if using a traditional pressure cooker. I using an electric pressure cooker then place on the high setting (Chicken/Meat) and cook for 60 minutes. so that it is fall apart tender. When the beef is done to your satisfaction, then drain the water off the meat then shred with a fork or other utensil and add the sauce.

Cost Savings

Beef roast and stew meat is not as cheap as it was in the past, however generally beef stew meat, which is are the trimmings from roast are generally cheaper to purchase that whole roasts. This is not always the case, but generally this is the case. As big 'comp shoppers' we check our adds each week and when roast is on sale we buy several and throw them in the freezer or make barbecue or can it as beef stew or soup base. This last week we bought four boneless chuck roasts on sale for $1.99lb, normally $5.49lb at our local Walmart (a 64% savings). Total cost for making 5 ½ pounds of barbecue beef is $13.55 or $2.46 per pound or $0.153 per ounce. I have included the cost breakdown of the ingredients below.

Boneless chuck roast 4.74lbs for 1.99lb, total cost = $9.43 (Walmart)

Crushed tomatoes (29oz can) $1.00ea, total cost = $2.00 (Dollar Tree)

Onions 5lbs for $0.99, or $0.198lb, (2 onions ½lb) total cost = $0.10 (Walmart)

White Vinegar 1 cup, $0.02 per ounce, total cost = $0.16 (Walmart)

Granulated Sugar ¼ cup, $0.06 per ounce, total cost = $0.12 (Walmart)

Worcestershire sauce ¼ cup, $0.10 per ounce, total cost = $0.20 (Walmart)

Miscellaneous dry spices total cost approximately $1.00 (Walmart)

For cost comparison, this recipe is very similar to prepackaged barbecue beef in the plastic containers that you will find in your local meat or delicatessen. Brands vary per region but in East Texas we primarily see Lloyd's Shredded Barbecue Beef (15oz) $4.83 or $0.322 per ounce. At one time Sadlers BBQ also made a shredded barbecue beef product, but they have since changed recipes and I can only find the brisket product in our area and it is quite a bit more expensive. So compared to Lloyd's it is 50% cheaper to make your own shredded barbecue beef at home than it is to purchase it at the supermarket.

Conclusion

We all have those foods that make us think of home, those comfort foods that remind us of loved ones that may no longer be with us. For me it was my grandmother's shredded barbecue beef sandwiches. Every time I prepare and eat this recipe I think of my grandmother. The pictures for this article were taken as I quickly made this recipe for my grandson who requested it for his birthday last weekend. As I would be working the day of his birthday, the barbecue beef went straight into the freezer to be thawed the day of his party. That's the great thing about this recipe, it freezes extremely well.

I hope you and your family will enjoy making my grandmothers barbecue beef. It is far cheaper to make your own than it is to purchase the premade barbecue at the supermarket (50% cheaper), and way cheaper than taking the family out for barbecue which for a family of four could easily cost you $40 to $50 dollars. And keep in mind that this recipe will easily make 10 sandwiches (½lb beef each) making the cost $1.35 per sandwich minus the bun, verses $6.00 for a chopped beef sandwich at a barbecue joint. As always, if you have enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends and don't forget to send us a friend request on Facebook and Google+ so that you will not miss out on any of our new articles.

Pressure Cooker: Sweet And Sour Chicken

Sweet and Sour dishes have always been popular in Chinese American restaurants throughout the United States. These dishes are usually made with chicken or pork and include pineapple, bell peppers and onions as well as garlic and ginger. The biggest difference from restaurant to restaurant seems to be the sweet and sour sauce used. The sauces either tend to be red in color or a more clear yellow color. The two sauces are made the same way, with the exception of the red sauce which has a tomato based component which in most cases is ketchup.

I have included two recipes for making sweet and sour chicken in your electric pressure cooker. Version one is the one illustrated in the photos in this article, and is the one I make most often. I have included a recipe to make your own red sweet and sour dipping sauce that is required for version two. You can of course use any sweet and sour sauce you have on hand for version two, but making your own is really easy and most of you should have the necessary ingredients in your pantry.

The Recipes

This recipe is pretty quick and easy to make. The part which takes the longest is coating the chicken with cornstarch and sauteing it prior to cooking. If you have read in my article on 'Electric Pressure Cookers', then you know that I do not brown my meat in my pressure cooker. No matter how hard I try, the meat always seems to stick and I get crappy results. So as always, I browned the chicken after it was coated in cornstarch in a skillet and then transferred it to my Power Cooker XL. Having said that, if you have had good results sauteing meat in your pressure cooker then please save yourself the trouble of washing an extra skillet and do it that way.

Sweet and Sour Chicken (Version 1)

6 chicken thighs (de-boned and cubed)

1 (20 ounce can) pineapple chunks

½ cup water or chicken stock
½ cup cornstarch
1 green pepper, cut into medium chunks
½ onion, cut into medium chunks

3 tablespoons brown sugar

3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 teaspoon chicken bouillon
1 teaspoon ginger paste or minced ginger or ¼ teaspoon ginger powder
¼ teaspoon each salt and white pepper

Cut up your boneless thighs into small chunks and then dredge the chicken in the cornstarch or all-purpose flour and set aside. Place the inner pot into the Pressure Cooker. Press the CHICKEN/MEAT button. Set time to 10 minutes and add two tablespoons of olive oil and the chicken to the pressure cooker and sauté the chicken until it is slightly browned. Then add the remaining ingredients and place the lid on the Pressure Cooker and lock. Switch the Pressure Release Valve to Closed.

Chefs Note: If your electric pressure cooker does not have a CHICKEN/MEAT button like the Power Pressure Cooker XL, then set it on high pressure and select 10 minutes as the cook time. You may have read in my article on 'Electric Pressure Cookers' I do not brown my meat in my pressure cooker as no matter how I try I get crappy results. So as always, I browned the chicken after it was coated in cornstarch in a skillet and then transferred it to my Power Cooker XL.

After 10 minutes when the timer reaches '0' most electric pressure cookers will automatically switch to keep warm mode. Once the pressure has been completely released, remove the lid and serve over cooked white rice, or allow to keep in warm mode until ready to eat.

Sweet and Sour Chicken (Version 2)

6 chicken thighs (de-boned and cubed)

¾ chicken stock or ¾ cup water + 1 teaspoon chicken bouillon
1 cup red sweet and sour sauce

6 ounces pineapple chunks.
1 green pepper, cut into medium chunks
1 medium onion, cut into medium chunks
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon ginger paste or minced ginger or ¼ teaspoon ginger powder
¼ teaspoon each salt and white pepper

Follow the same cooking instructions for version one.

Red Sweet and Sour Sauce

1 cup pineapple juice

½ cup ketchup

¼ white vinegar

¼ cup sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Combine cornstarch and two tablespoons of pineapple juice in a small bowl to make a slurry and set aside. Combine the remaining ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer then add the cornstarch slurry and cook until thickened (about 5 minutes).

Conclusion

I hope you and your family will enjoy making this sweet and sour chicken recipe in your electric pressure cooker. It is far cheaper to make your own than it is to take the family out for Chinese food. If you prefer sweet and sour pork, then substitute 1lb pork butt cut into 1” cubes and coat and brown it the same as you would the chicken. If you prefer a little heat, you can add 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes to add a little zip to your meal. Add any additional vegetables you would like to this dish to give it even more flavor. Traditional additives such as sugar snap peas, water chestnuts, carrots and green onions make nice additions to this dish. As always, if you have enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends and don't forget to send us a friend request on Facebook and Google+ so that you will not miss out on any of our new articles.

Similar Electric Pressure Cooker Articles On Our Blog:

Pressure Cooker Spaghetti

Pressure Cooker Stroganoff

Electric Pressure Cookers: A Review Of Sorts.

Chipotle's Adobo Marinade

Ok, so who doesn't love the burritos from Chipotle? Well there may be a few detractors, but for the most part everyone I know loves the marinated and grilled chicken, steak, and barbacoa at Chipotle restaurants. Let's face it though, not everyone has a Chipotle restaurant in their local area. Have no fear there are quite a few recipes on on the world wide web on how to make your own “Chipotle' style marinade. Some are better than others, but the problem is that even the employees working at Chipotle's restaurants do not know the recipe.So what is Chipotle's secret ingredient? Actually, it is not so secret, it is simply a marinade made from adobo sauce. However, it is the recipe for their adobo sauce that is the secret.

According to the multiple accounts I have read from employees who have worked for Chipotle, their marinade comes in clear plastic bags that are simply labeled 'adobo'. Now I cannot verify this as I have never worked for Chipotle, but it makes sense that they would make their own proprietary adobo sauce in their company commissary and then ship it to their restaurants to keep folks like me from making my own. The best recipe that I tried before deciding to make my own was originally posted over on Chipotlefan.com. I have included a small batch version of their original recipe here for you to look at.

Chipotle Fan's Chipotle Marinade

5 ancho chilies, dried (about 1 ounce)

1 (7oz can) of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

½ red onion, minced

3 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 tablespoon fresh oregano (or 1 teaspoon dried oregano)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cumin

½ teaspoon black pepper

To be honest, I think this marinade it a pretty close facsimile of the 'Chipotle' marinade, but what I really disliked about this recipe was that it called for you to remove the chipotle peppers and seeds and only use the sauce. Personally I thought this was a big waste. If all you wanted from the can is the adobo sauce, why not simply buy a can of adobo sauce or make your own? With that thought in mind, I started experimenting with making my own adobo sauce. I played around with a lot of recipes making some changes here, adding some other ingredients until I was satisfied that I have a nice well rounded adobo sauce of my own.

Making Your Own Adobo Sauce

Making your own adobo sauce is pretty easy, the only thing that you may not have in your kitchen is ancho and or guajillo peppers. Adobo is traditionally made using dried guajillo peppers, however in many recipes guajillo and ancho peppers are used interchangeably, so if you do not have any guajillo peppers on hand, or do not want to spend the extra money on them, then just substitute ancho chilies for the guajillo.

My Adobo Sauce (makes ½ Cup)

5 to 6 dried guajillo or ancho chilies
1 to 2 dried jalapenos (2 if you like it spicy)

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

½ onion, minced

3 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 ½ teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon garlic, minced

½ teaspoon dried oregano

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground cumin

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon black pepper

Heat a large skillet over medium heat and toast the chilies, turning frequently, until very pliable and soft; do not allow them to burn. Remove the dried peppers from the skillet and transfer them to a plate. Remove the stems and seeds and place in a saucepan. Add enough hot water to just cover and bring to a boil. Cover the pan, remove from the heat and allow chilies to soak for 20 minutes. Remove the peppers and reserve soaking liquid for later use.

In a blender or food processor, combine all of the ingredients and puree until smooth. If needed, add a little of the chile soaking liquid (only as much as is needed) to enable the mixture to blend. The consistency should be thick but smooth. Cover and refrigerate or freeze until ready to use.

Chef's Note: I will be honest, I do not always toast my dried chilies. If I am in a hurry, I simply remove the stems and split the peppers with a pair of kitchen shears and throw them in the saucepan and cover them with water.

Chipotle Marinade (The Final Product)

Once I had created an adobo sauce that I was happy with, I wanted to streamline the process to come up with a quick way to make my own Chipotle style marinade. So the next logical step was to combine the ingredients from my adobo sauce with the ingredients from the 'Chipotle Fan' marinade listed inthis article. I really enjoy this marinade and think that it is a good representation of Chipotle's marinade. Is it exact no...but unless Chipotle decides to publish the steps to make their signature marinade it will have to do.

My Chipotle Marinade

10 ancho chilies, dried (or 5 ancho and 5 guajillo chilies)
1 to 2 dried jalapenos (2 or more if you like it spicy) 

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

½ red onion, minced

3 tablespoons ketchup

2 tablespoons liquid (water from reconstituted peppers)

1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1 tablespoon lime juice

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 tablespoon fresh oregano (or 1 teaspoon dried)

2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cumin

½ teaspoon black pepper

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Heat a large skillet over medium heat and toast the chilies, turning frequently, until very pliable and soft; do not allow them to burn. Remove from the skillet and transfer to a plate. Remove the stems and seeds and place them in the saucepan. Add enough hot water to just cover and bring to a boil. Cover the pan, remove from the heat and allow chilies to soak for 20 minutes. Remove the peppers and reserve soaking liquid for later use.

In a food processor or blender, combine all the ingredients and 2 tablespoons of the chile soaking liquid and puree. Add additional chile soaking liquid as required, however, keep in mind the consistency of the marinade should be thick and smooth. Cover and refrigerate or freeze until ready to use.

Chef's Note: This marinade or paste makes about 1 1/2 cups which is enough marinade for about 10lbs of meat (depending on how spicy you like your meat). The marinade or paste is pretty thick and can be thinned with the water reserved from the chilies or stock if you want a more wet marinade. I divide the marinade into three parts and place the other two parts in small plastic containers that I then freeze until I am ready to use next time.

How to Use This Marinade

As I mentioned, no one at the restaurant knows what is in those little clear plastic bags simply labeled 'adobo', but what they do know is how it is used. According to former employees, for 40lbs of chicken, they use two of the 10oz bags (20 ounces total) of adobo (that's ½ ounce of marinade for each pound of boneless chicken thighs). For 40lbs of steak, they use four 10oz bags (40 ounces total) of adobo (that's 1oz for each pound of steak). Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any reference to the amount of marinade used for Chipotle's Barbacoa, so some experimentation is needed here. Remember the marinade for Chipotle's chicken, steak, and barbacoa is the same, just different amounts of marinade are used depending on the meat being marinaded.

I do not believe my marinade is as concentrated as the abodo sauce that Chipotle uses. My recommendation for best results when using my marinade is to use the following ratio of marinade/paste per pound of meat.

Boneless Chicken Thighs 1 ounce of marinade per pound of meat.
Round Steak 2 ounces of marinade per pound of meat.
Barbacoa (chuck roast) 1 ounce of marinade per pound of meat.

Conclusion

There you have it, my version of Chiptole's marinade. A couple of things to think about when it comes to this marinade or paste. Chipotle is the name of the restaurant, not the marinade. The marinade they use is actually an adobo sauce that is traditionally made with ancho or guajillo peppers not chipotle's (which are smoked jalapeños). Varying the amount of marinade that you use will increase or decrease the intensity of flavor of the meat being marinaded. Soon to come, making your own Chiptole style burritos. As always, if you have enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends and don't forget to send us a friend request on Facebook and Google+ so that you will not miss out on any of our new articles.


References:

Chipotle Fan Website