The Chicago Crispy Steak Sandwich: Spilled Milk #318
Forget moderation: Sometimes you NEED a sandwich like this one!
That’s right, there’s a bonus recipe this week!
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Born in the grease-slicked glory days of postwar Chicago, the fried steak sandwich is a love letter to excess, a glorious Frankenstein of immigrant grit and blue-collar bravado. Places like Ricobene’s on 26th Street didn’t invent steak, frying or sandwiches, but they perfected the unholy trinity by hammering the meat into submission, breading it, deep-frying it until audibly crisp and shoving it onto a squishy roll buried under molten giardiniera and sweet red sauce. It’s Italian-American ingenuity at its finest: part Milanese cutlet, part South Side dare.
The sandwich thrived because it made brutal sense. Chicago’s working class needed meals that could withstand a double shift, a snowstorm and existential despair. A salad wouldn't cut it. By the 1970s, Ricobene’s had elevated the fried steak into a civic institution, its neon glow promising salvation to cops, cabbies and late-night philosophers alike. Today, it’s less a menu item than a rite of passage: a crispy, spicy, wildly impractical piece of culinary Americana that dares you to conquer it—and yourself—in one sitting. In a town that canonized beef sandwiches and deep-dish, the fried steak sandwich remains Chicago’s greasiest, most endearing middle finger to moderation.
This is my version, and I like mine without giardiniera. But you do you.
Recipe: The Chicago Crispy Steak Sandwich
Makes enough for 2 large hero sandwiches.
2 beaten eggs
2 6-8 oz. sirloin steaks, halved and pounded to 1/3 of an inch
2 cups of panko breadcrumbs
1 cup of all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons of Andrew Zimmern’s Italian Seasoning
1-2 cups homemade marinara sauce
Slices of fresh mozzarella
A big handful of basil leaves
Soft hero rolls
2 cups of vegetable oil
1/2 cup of grated caciocavallo cheese
1/4 cup of grated Reggiano Parmesan cheese
Mix the flour with half the Italian seasoning. Place the other half of Italian seasoning into the bowl containing your panko breadcrumbs.
Dredge your meat pieces first in flour, then in the beaten eggs, then into the breadcrumbs and fry in the oil that has been heated to about 375 degrees.
When crispy, season with sea salt after taking them out of the oil.
Place the meat onto your split hero rolls, pour your hot marinara and mozzarella onto the sandwiches. Garnish with large handfuls of fresh basil and the grated cheeses.
Now devour it.
Hi there Andrew! As someone currently documenting bureaucratic trauma and dairy-based emotional spirals from rural France, I salute this sandwich and its crispy, unhinged dignity. Subscribed.
Might have slipped a mystery parcel from rural France into the mail. It squeaks slightly and smells like Foie Gras…….
Love this! Reminds me of the Mortadella Focaccia sandwich recipe I adapted from L.A.-based Roman cuisine restaurant Mother Wolf for easy home cooking!
check it out:
https://thesecretingredient.substack.com/p/recreating-evan-funkes-la-mortazza