Slow French Dip Sandwiches

American Entree

SLOW FRENCH DIP SANDWICHES

INGREDIENTS

2 ½ pounds beef loin top sirloin
1½ pounds beef sirloin tip
1 10.5 ounce can condensed French onion soup
1 cup beef stock or broth
½ cup water
8 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon rosemary
1 teaspoon thyme
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon beef base or 1 beef bouillon cube
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon Meat MagicTM spice
¼ teaspoon black pepper
10 slices provolone cheese or about 10 ounces
5 French rolls

SPECIALTY UTENSIL

3 quart, or larger, slow cooker.

PREPARATION

Cut the top sirloin and the sirloin tip enough so that it will fit inside your slow cooker and be covered with the liquid you will add later. Dice garlic cloves.

In fact, here comes the liquid now. Pour French onion soup, beef stock, and water into slow cooker. And now for addition. Add peppercorns, bay leaf, rosemary, thyme, garlic, beef base, sea salt, meat spice, and pepper. And wait.

And wait. Oh and the turn the cooker on low for 6-to-8 hours. (Egads, you’ll have time to collect all receipts that you’ve stashed all around the house in preparation for tax time. Then you forgot where you put them. Now you have time to find them. Go! Go! Look for those receipts. I’m with you on this one.)

It really pays to get an early start on this one, especially if you are using your cooker for the first time. Many but not all slow cookers will get the job done on low in 6-to-8 hours. (My crock pot however needs to be set on high to cook anything in less time than it takes a city to repair a major street.)

Use spoon with holes in it to remove beef from cooker to serving bowl. Open French rolls. Put a slice of provolone cheese on each half. Use spoon with holes in it to put a generous portion of beef on the roll. Spoon juice remaining in cooker onto open sandwich. Close sandwich. Spoon more juice onto closed French roll. Eat. Dream of Heaven.

TIDBITS

1) The sandwich was invented in 1762 when the Earl of Sandwich was too busy to leave the gambling table to eat. Instead, he had a waiter bring him roast beef between two pieces of bread.

2) See, gambling has been good for society.

3) Indeed, many people believe professional sports came into being because gamblers hired players to be on the team they were backing with their bets.

4) The Earl asked for slices of bread to keep the grease from the roast beef from marking the playing cards.

5) While the Earl earns a spot in any culinary hall of fame, he was indeed a flawed man: opinionated, drunken, corrupt, incompetent, a sex fiend, a Satan worshiper, and all that.

6) There is no word, however, if he over spiced.

7) But he did weaken the Royal Navy to such an extent that the French Fleet beat it in 1781, ensuring America’s victory in the American Revolution.

8) A lot to think about when you bite into your next sandwich.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.