Chicago Style Italian Beef (Dutch Oven Recipe)
Ingredients:
4-5 lb. Top Round Roast
3 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tbsp. whole fennel seeds
1 quart beef stock (4 cups)
1 ½ quart water (6 cups)
1 tbsp. Better than Bouillon
12 Slices Provolone cheese
Sweet peppers or Giardinieria
French bread loaves
Spice Blend:
1 tbsp. each of garlic powder, onion powder, celery salt, black pepper, smoked paprika, oregano, thyme and crushed red pepper flakes.
Preheat oven to 300-degrees F. Put the rack one row below center. Trace the bottom of the dutch oven on a piece of parchment paper. Cut out the circle and set aside. You’ve just made a cartouche (lid).
Cut the top round roast in 2 equal pieces. Add oil to dutch oven and then add the meat and brown on all sides, about 2 minutes per side. Remove meat to a plate. Add fennel seeds to dutch oven and toast for 1 minute, stirring often. Remove seeds to a small bowl. Add remaining spices to bowl and stir well.
Deglaze the dutch oven with beef stock. Add the water, bouillon and spice blend. Add beef sections back to the pot and cover with the cartouche. Add Dutch oven to oven and braise over low heat for 3 hours. Remove meat from the au jus, let cool a 5 minutes and then wrap with plastic wrap and place on a plate in the freezer for about 1 ½ hours. Remove from freezer, unwrap and slice thin. Set aside.
Meanwhile, set a strainer in a bowl and pour the juice from the pot over the strainer, pressing on the solids to extract as much beef au jus as possible. Pour the strained au jus back into the pot and heat over medium heat until hot. Add the sliced beef back to pot and toss in au jus for about 3 minutes. Slice long loaf of French bread into sandwich size servings and cut to open one side, without slicing all the way through. Add thinly sliced beef with a slice or two of provolone cheese and sweet or hot peppers, if using.
