Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches

I love the Subway Chipotle Steak and Cheese sub. It's one of my favourites. I don't even care that the meat comes in cubes, everything just works really well together and it's my guilty pleasure.

I might be showing off my foodie ignorance here, but at the time I had no idea that this was a spin on the Philadelphia Cheesesteak. (I love reading Wikipedia articles on the history of foods, don't you?). I discovered the wide and varied world of the Philadelphia Cheesesteak while I was trying - and failing - to replicate the Subway sub at home. I was never able to replicate the sauce, so I stopped my efforts and we never tried any of the recipes I found. Of course, when my sister S provided me with some of Subway's Southwest Sauce, I didn't think to make a cheesesteak.

Then I found this recipe Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches on Life's Ambrosia via foodgawker. Many of the cheesesteak recipes I'd been looking at had processed cheese topping, which sounds a bit icky and is also quite difficult to get here in Australia. This one doesn't. It uses instead a roux mixed with cream cheese and grated cheedar which is easily made at home.

When I showed this recipe to D, he was most excited and wanted it for dinner that weekend. Unfortunately, I only had gravy beef on hand as we were going to make something in the slowcooker. The original recipe has steak cooked with granulated garlic, worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper in a skillet. I changed mine to be cooked low and slow on the stove. I caramelised the onions per the recipe then removed them to brown the meat. Once the meat was browned, I returned the onions to the pan with a little bit of beef stock and an adjusted amount of garlic and worcestershire sauce (when I say adjusted, I mean lots more, but I don't know how much I ended up adding) and then cooked it for 2-3 hours on a low heat.

After the meat had cooked, I removed it from the stock and cut it into small pieces. That's when I messed up. The meat was incredibly tasty as it was, but the garlic/worcestershire flavour was very very mild. I put the cut up meat back into the pan and added the directed amount of garlic and worcestershire. This pushed the meat into the "very strongly flavoured" category and it wasn't as nice anymore. It was still very very yummy, but it wasn't the one for me, one for the bowl kind of yummy like it was before.

The meat and the sauce worked very well together. It's an incredibly hearty sandwich. We served our sandwiches on dinner rolls and I could only manage one. D managed two and a bit, but was very full afterwards. It was a fun experiment, but I think when I want my cheesesteak fix I'll just go to Subway. Somehow, their sandwiches are nearly as filling as the ones we made at home. I think that part of the guilty pleasure is that everything is so processed in a sub, and good homemade food just can't replicate it.

Hmm. I don't know if I want to eat another steak and cheese sub now. It doesn't sound all that appetising, does it?

This recipe on Life's Ambrosia is extremely appetising though. Visit this post for the recipe.