Philly
Cheese Steaks are a delicious and unique addition to your
tailgate. Few things are as pleasing as a big juicy steak
sub, and if you follow this recipe you'll feel like you're on
South Street.
This recipe calls for cooking the meat in
advance in plain, onion, and mushroom batches, then mixing them
together and re-grilling them at the tailgate. This allows
you to serve up hot subs with custom ingredients. This will
make enough for about 10 big subs.
Time Required: One hour prep
time at home, plus a few minutes per sub
at the tailgate
Skill Required: Moderate to
intermediate cooking skills needed
Ingredients for preparation at home:
3
pounds of rib-eye steak. This can be bought frozen, but do
not buy anything of the "minute steak" variety. Make sure
it has real cuts of meat with fat marbled in. You can also
buy fresh thin-sliced rib eye, which is a little harder to chop
up for the correct texture.
2
onions
2 cans
of sliced mushrooms
Salt,
pepper, & garlic
Butter
Ingredients needed at the tailgate:
A flat
grilling surface; a cast-iron griddle works best
Butter
Your
choice of cheese; Provolone, American, and gooey nacho-type "cheez"
work best
High-quality sub rolls; this is a critical item!
Hot
peppers, lettuce, and tomato
Ketchup and mayonnaise
Steps at home:
Slice
the onions and set aside
Divide
your rib eye roughly into three batches; you'll be making a
batch heavy in onions, a batch heavy in mushrooms, and a plain
batch. Adjust the sizes according to your guests' tastes
Melt
some butter in a large pan
Add
some rib eye and season with salt, pepper, and garlic
Cook
until the meat is brown and cooked through, but not do not
overcook; you'll be cooking this again at the tailgate.
Cook only as much as will fit in the pan, you'll make several
batches
Repeat
until your designated "plain" rib eye is cooked, and set all of
it aside to cool
Melt
butter in the pan and add onions.
Add
salt, pepper, and garlic and sauté the onions until slightly
translucent.
Add
your designated "onion" rib eye and cook until brown.
Remove and cool when finished
Melt
butter in the pan and add mushrooms
Add
salt, pepper, and garlic and sauté for a minute or two
Add
the remaining rib eye and cook until brown. Remove and set
aside to cool
Place
each type of meat in a zip-lock bag or other container for
transporting to the tailgate. You can refrigerate the meat
if needed
Steps at the tailgate:
Heat
your griddle on a charcoal or gas grill (or by any other means)
and melt some butter. We have found that a hibachi-type
grill is the perfect size for a cast-iron griddle (see picture
above)
Add
rib eye as needed; mix the types of meat to create plain, onion,
mushroom, or combination steaks. You can also add hot
peppers to any order
The
meat should heat through fairly quickly as you toss it on the
griddle
