Italian beef sandwich, southerners didn't know about it

[Brad_bb]

Italian beef has always been a normal thing growing up in Norther IL.  I was about and hour south of Chicago.  When my nieces were born starting in 2000 I'd go down to Indy and they didn't know what Italian beef was doing there.  In 2016 a timberframe crew came up from South Carolina and they didn't know what Italian beef was.  Many in Indy now know as Portillo's had opened up a couple restaurants here and it's a main staple there, and they are very popular.  At home it's easy to make:

I throw 4 lbs of beef chuck roast in the crock pot, 2 cans of Campbell's Beef Consume, one packet of Lipton Onion soup dry mix, and several table spoons of dry Italian herbs(sage, rosemary, and thyme and sometimes can have other things too).  Let it go low and slow and in 3-5 hours the beef should fall apart easily and your place will smell wonderful.  Put the beef on small french rolls.  

Good accompanying things are cooked green bell peppers slices, Mozzarella, Pepperoncini peppers(spicy buy not hot).

I think portillos slices the beef very thin and then cooks it versus leaving it whole like I do in the crock pot.   If you have a different recipe for Italian beef, post it here.  Always looking for ways to kick things up a notch!

[Raider Bill]

I go to the local Italian deli about once a month for one.

When I get a hankering to cook some I pretty much use your recipe.

Put on hard roll and garnish with Chicago-style Giardiniera.

It's a simple cheap DELISH sammy!

[WV Sawmiller]

Brad,

  Except for the spices sounds very much like the beef I used to cook and eat in Cameroon in West Africa while I was there. I'd buy 4-5 kilos from the local butcher. His entire shop consisted of a short handled ax, a machete and a set of balance scales. You had to buy the beef early in the morning as he'd get about a half a frozen/chilled beef per day and it would hang in his open air market all day. The only beef available was local grass/brush fed Brahman type cattle.

  I used a big aluminum Dutch oven, browned the meat on all sides, dumped in a pack of dry soup mix and covered the meat with water and cooked in a slow oven all day till it would fall apart. I'd package up in about one pint to one quart packages. I'd buy soft rolls from the local boulangerie called "Pain viennois" and keep them in the freezer. Every day I would go home at lunch and nuke a soft roll and meat, slather it good with mayo, add the meat and start grazing.

  I never tried it with onions or peppers but am sure it would have to have been really good.