eatbensmeat

Couple of things to note here.  I’m going to give you a recipe for the jus, with an option on what kind of meat you want to make with it.  You have a couple options:

1. Use a pot roast and basically cook it in the jus until you can make pulled beef out of it.  It has the most flavor, but it doesn’t have the right texture.  Tastes great, though.
2. Use steaks.  I tried to use minute steaks (thin ribeye) for this, on the theory that it would have a pretty good flavor and also be close to the texture.  That’s true, but you have to watch it, because it will go from tender to nothing without warning.  By the time I realized I should take these out they were falling apart every time I tried to grab one with a fork.  Pretty good medium option.
3. Use roast beef from the deli.  You just boil the jus and cook this in it for 10 minutes.  Tastes pretty good, texture is perfect, and it has the benefit that you can freeze the jus in small portions and freeze it.  That way you can make this whenever you wan

 

Ingredients

For the jus:

1 32 ounce jar pepperoncinis

1 tablespoon oregano

8-12 cloves garlic (about a handful) (no such thing as too much here)

1 tablespoon basil

1-2 onions, chopped

1-2 pounds good beef bones for broth (oxtails are perfect and what I use, feet with some meat on them, anything marketed as soup bones.  You aren’t expecting to get the meat out of these, you mostly want the bones for flavor)

salt and pepper to taste

Water to cover

For the meat:

2-3 pounds beef of your choice (see above)

Good thick bread.  Hamburger buns see this sandwich and cry and run away.  French bread works really well.

Provolone or mozzarella

Giardiniera

Peppers, onions, mushrooms, whatever you like on your sandwich

Directions:

Drain the pepperoncinis in to your pot, reserving the peppers themselves.  Remove the stems and add them to the pot.  Add the garlic, oregano, basil, onion, and broth beef to the pot, and add water to cover.  Turn the burner to high to get it to boil.

Now, while it’s heating up, you can add your beef.  Depending on your choice of meat, there are different directions:

1. If you’re going the pot roast route, add it to the jus and add water to cover.  Bring it fully to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, adding water if things start to dry out or burn..    After 2-3 hours, remove the meat from the pot and shred.  Reduce the jus to your liking, remove whatever bones you still have in the broth, and you’re done.
2. If you’re going the steak route, add to the pot and add water to cover.  After about 45 minutes, it should be done and ready to come out.  Remove the steaks once they’re cooked and tender (they will actually become cooked and fairly stiff before they start to fall apart and become tender. If you don’t believe me, check them around 15 minutes.)  and set them aside.  Continue to cook the jus until it’s been simmering for a total of 3 hours, remove whatever bones you have in there, scraping the meat off of them, and you’re ready to serve.
3. If you’re going the roast-beef-from-the-deli route, no worries, you’re pretty much done!  Let this simmer for 2-3 hours, until the beef from whatever bones you threw in are falling off the bone.  Add your roast beef to the simmering jus.  Give it 5-10 minutes to soak up that flavor, and you should be good to go.  Dip your bread in the jus and go to town.

A note on when the jus is really done:  If you pick up one of the bones you are using with tongs, scrape at it with a fork and see if the meat comes off.  If it does, the broth is pretty much done.  What you want to do then is pick up a piece, scrape the meat off in to the broth, and discard the bone that’s left.  Repeat with the bones that are left in the broth until you’ve removed all of them and the broth that’s left is a kind of slurry of meat and jus.  It should take about 3 hours of cooking time, but it could easily take more.  It depends entirely on how good the beef bones you have are.

No fucking way it takes more than 5 hours, though.  If you run in to that you’ve got dinosaur bones or something.

Anyway, you may have to add water to this as it cooks down.  Maybe a cup or two over the whole time of cooking.  If it’s more than that, you should turn down the heat.

One last note: If you are cooking this, you want the fat to render off the beef.  If it isn’t after an hour, then increase the heat on the burner until you’ve got it boiling, and check it every few minutes, adding water as needed, until the fat is pretty much rendered off.

Anyway, that’s it!  Enjoy!