As part of our superstitious march towards a potential Super Bowl berth, we made another Buffalo/Opponent City fusion Football Food dish to try to honor and vanquish our foes. It worked with our Buffalo Crab Cakes in the divisional round, but came up a little (okay, a lot) short in the AFC Championship game. We will do some good self scouting this off-season, draft some first round ingredients, and come back hungry for victory next season! All that said, this season was an incredible one, and I enjoyed every moment of it.
Now onto the actual food. While we didn’t use Buffalo sauce for this one, and that’s the most likely reason why they lost, we are still happy with our food decision, as it was delicious! We decided to borrow from KC style BBQ and build that into the Buffalo classic that is “Beef on Weck!” Beef on Weck is at its core a roast beef sandwich made from tender braised meat atop a hearty roll with a crispy exterior adorned with caraway seeds and often kosher salt. In the end, we wound up with a sandwich (using venison instead of beef) with a BBQey meat, a little horseradish, and great flavour!
We served our sandwich with Sweet Potato Wedge Fries, and that worked as a great pairing. If you prefer something a little lighter, a side salad or some Coleslaw would be pretty tasty and fitting as well.
Time: 30 Minutes
Ingredients:
- Venison (or Beef) Chip Steak
- Beef (or Vegetable) Stock (about a cup)
- Kimmelweck Roll. Or you can use your favourite type of sandwich roll, although then it’s improper to call it “on weck.”
- BBQ Sauce. We used KC Style.
- Butter
- Optional but encouraged: Horseradish
Method:
- Bring your stock to a low simmer in a large bottomed pan.
- Turn your heat down to very low, and add in your thinly sliced meat, and cover your pan.
- Braise (just let your meat cook in the liquid) for about 20-25 minutes.
- As your meat cooks, prep your rolls. Slice, and spread a little butter (and optional horseradish) on the tops and bottoms. Toast in the oven if you like.
- When your meat is cooked, use tongs to transfer it to a large bowl. Pour in some of your BBQ sauce, and mix to combine and coat.
- Scoop your saucy meat onto your roll.
- Plate, devour, and enjoy!
This sounds good! The Weck is interesting insofar that the origin is german (of course). The word Weck is used in southern and south-western Germany, as well as parts of Switzerland and Austria. The word changes into Brötchen/ small bread north of Frankfurt, a line referred to as the Weisswurst Äquator/ the white sausage equator. White sausage is a sausage that used to be made of veal meat and brains and it was so highly perishable butchers made it in the morning and it had to be consumed by noon. After the mad cow disease some time ago, the recipes changed…no more brains. But I digress. This equator is considered by southerners as well as northerners to be a natural border between the people, the customs, the (former) political systems,the language and the food of their respective areas.
To get back to the Weck, there are a great many variations around, to include some with caraway seeds or coarse salt or both. The one thing they aren’t is fluffy like a roll, but rather like a french baguette on the outside (maybe not as crusty), but definitely with resistance, and a soft, but strong dough inside. Here you would add anything from cold cuts, cheeses, Bratwurst, Bockwurst or other sausages, Schnitzels or even small steaks, pork or others.