Created on the Sout Side of Chicago (no "h" used in South), in the Italian enclaves around the now defunct Stockyards, the classic Chicago Italian Beef Sandwich (pronounced sangwitch) is a unique, drippy, messy variation on the French Dip Sandwich.
It is available in hundreds of joints around the city, and rarely found beyond its environs.
The exact origin is unknown, but the sandwich was probably created by Italian immigrants in the early 1900s as they rose from poverty and ground meat into the middle class, when they were able to afford beef for roasting.
Nobody knows for sure the inventor, but the recipe was popularized by Pasquale Scala, a South Side butcher and sausage maker. During the Depression, in the late 1920s, when food was scarce, Scala's thinly sliced roast beef on a bun with gravy and fried peppers took off. Today, beef sangwitches are a staple at Italian weddings, funerals, parties, political fundraisers, and lunches "wit my boyz". And Scala's Original supplies hundreds of restaurants and Italian Beef Stands with the raw ingredients.
Italian Beef is made by slowly roasting lean beef on a rack above a pan filled with seasoned beef-based stock. Some folks call it gravy,
but in most Chicago Italian households gravy is a term reserved for tomato sauces. Others call it au jus or "juice" for short, although it is often made with bouillon, and that is not technically au juice, which normally refers to natural cooking juices. Let's just call it juice, OK?
Then it is sliced paper thin, soaked in the juice for a few minutes, and layered generously, dripping wet, onto sections of Italian bread loaves, sliced lengthwise.
This crust is typically tan, only slightly crumbly, fluffy and white in the center, and high in gluten. it is important that the bread has, what Bounty Towels calls "wet strength". This comes from long fermentations, he explains. The more accelerator, the worse the bread, as far as Italian beef goes. French breads just don't cut it, he says.
The meat is topped with sautéd green bell pepper slices and giardiniera, which is usually a spicy hot blend of chopped serrano peppers, carrots, cauliflower florets, celery, olives, herbs, salt & pepper, packed in oil and/or vinegar. Finally juice is spooned over the toppings, making the bread wet and chewy. Many stands will dip the whole sandwich in juice if you ask. You can ask for juice for dipping on the side, but then everyone will know you ain't from around here.
Italian Beef is made by slowly roasting lean beef on a rack above a pan filled with seasoned beef-based stock. Some folks call it gravy, 
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