Italian Beef Sandwich

As tradition built it

Italian Beef Sandwich

Serves 6 · 3 hours, mostly unattended

Ingredients

• 1.5kg beef top round or rump, in one piece
• 1 litre beef stock
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 tbsp dried oregano
• 1 tbsp dried basil
• to taste salt, black pepper
• 6 long Italian bread rolls
• to taste giardiniera or sweet roasted peppers, to serve

Method

1. Season the beef generously with salt and black pepper, then roast at 220°C for 20 minutes to colour, then reduce to 160°C and roast until just cooked through to medium, roughly 1 to 1½ hours depending on thickness.
2. Rest the beef fully, then slice as thinly as possible, ideally on a meat slicer.
3. Meanwhile simmer the stock with garlic, oregano and basil for 30 minutes, then season.
4. Return the sliced beef to the simmering gravy to soak through.
5. For a wet sandwich, ladle gravy into the split roll before adding the beef; for a dipped sandwich, assemble the sandwich fully, then submerge it whole in the gravy pot briefly with tongs before serving. Top with giardiniera or sweet peppers.

Notes

Al Ferreri's family credits their own 1938 stand; Chicago Sun-Times critic Pat Bruno instead traced the dish to the Los Angeles French dip. This chapter names both rather than choosing.

What a modern chef changes

A precise low-temperature cook for an evenly pink, genuinely tender slice.

Rung 6 principle, applied to beef rather than barbecue

Method

1. Cook the beef sous vide to a precise 54°C core, then sear hard on all sides for colour before resting and slicing, giving a far more even, consistently rosy slice edge to edge than a roasted joint can guarantee.
2. Reduce the gravy separately to a genuinely concentrated stage before the beef is returned to it, so the dip stage saturates the bread with real depth rather than a thin, salted stock.