|
From: Kathy
Sent: Friday, October 13, 2017 3:10 AM
To: phaedrus@hungrybrowser.com
Subject: Recipe request.
I would love to have the recipe for my most favorite Howard Johnson's French Dip Sandwich.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Kathy
Hi Katherine,
Sorry, I had no success with a recipe or a copycat for Howard Johnson’s French Dip Sandwich.
There are some other French Dip Sandwich recipes here: French Dip Sandwiches
I will post this for reader input.
Phaed
From: Kathy
Sent: Friday, October 13, 2017 11:07 AM
To: Phaedrus
Subject: Re: HoJo's French Dip Sandwich
Thank you very much!
I had a similar sandwich at Cracker Barrel last night but they wouldn't share their recipe with me. :(
Kathy
Hi Kathy,
What was it called at Cracker Barrel? Do you want me to search for that recipe?
Phaed
From: Kathy
Sent: Friday, October 13, 2017 12:02 PM
To: Phaedrus
Subject: Re: HoJo's French Dip Sandwich
Hello Phaed!
At Cracker Barrel it was simply called a "French Dip Sandwich." I believe it is new to their menu this fall.
It contained sliced onions, slices of beef (supposedly prime rib) that was very tender and tasty, and Swiss
cheese. Not sure what else. It was served with a cup of salty, but tasty beef broth to dip the sandwich in.
Was on a soft hoagie bun. Delicious!
Kathy
Hi Kathy,
I saw a photo of it on the Cracker Barrel website: Cracker Barrel French Dip Sandwich Platter
It looks and sounds tasty to me! They describe it as: Prime Rib that’s roasted slow and served with
fresh grilled onions, beef au jus, Swiss Cheese, and Peppercorn Horseradish Sauce on a toasted hoagie bun.
I had no luck locating a recipe or copycat. It may be too new. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a recipe on the
web sometime soon, though. Cracker Barrel recipes are very popular. I’ll post this for reader input.
Meanwhile, here’s another one that looks good: Prime Rib French Dip Sandwich
Phaed
From: Lisa
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2017 8:40 AM
To: phaedrus@hungrybrowser.com
Subject: Scotch 'n' Sirloin Salad Dressing
I’ve been searching for the favorite salad dressing of my childhood from the Scotch ‘n’ Sirloin restaurant
in Vestal, NY – basically an Italian style dressing (vinegar & oil based). Anybody got the recipe?
Fingers crossed!
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
I didn’t have much luck with this. All I could find were a couple of mentions of the Scotch ‘n’ Sirloin
restaurant in Vestal. I found other mentions of a Scotch ‘n’ Sirloin restaurant in the Vestal Plaza in
Binghamton, NY, and mentions of Scotch ‘n’ Sirloin restaurants in Syracuse and DeWitt. I suppose they
were all part of the same chain of restaurants. However, I could not find a recipe or any mention of
the salad dressing you describe from any of them. Sorry.
I’ll post this for reader input.
Phaed
When greens were in season, we often had greens and cornbread instead of peas and cornbread. These were
usually turnip greens or mustard greens or a mixture of the two. Occasionally we'd have collard greens,
but not as frequently as the other two. Whichever type of greens we had, they'd be cooked with salt pork.
I can't say that Mom added no sugar at all to her greens. Greens tend to have a slightly bitter taste,
so Mom might have added a little sugar to balance that bitterness. Greens are great with Southern cornbread.
The pot-likker from greens, like that of blackeyed peas, is delicious spooned over crumbled cornbread. In
the North, we also have Swiss chard, beet greens, and fresh spinach. I don't recall Swiss chard or beet greens,
but we had spinach(maybe canned) sometimes in the South.
For meat, we often had "pot roast." Our pot roast was a chuck roast or a "seven-bone" roast" cooked in
aluminum foil in a cast iron skillet in the oven. It was so tender that it would fall apart when you tried
to pick it up with a fork. This is what comes to my mind when I think of "roast beef", not those big roasts
that they serve thin, rare, slices of at buffets and in delis. We also had "pork backbone roasts" that Mom
cooked the same way, and they were delicious, too. Much more tender than pork shoulder roasts or Boston butt
roasts or pork picnic roasts. I never see "pork backbone roasts" in the market these days, certainly not at
supermarket chains, but maybe they're still available if you have an independent local grocery store with
its own butcher, or if you have an actual butcher shop in your area. Of course, you can still get chuck
roasts, and I saw a "seven-bone" roast in the market recently. We had an excellent chuck roast for dinner
last night, so it's not something I have to go without. This kind of roast beef makes a great roast beef
sandwich with real mayonnaise and dill pickles.
Is frying pork chops a lost art? I don't mean sauteed. I mean battered and fried like chicken and eaten with
or without gravy. I haven't had a batter-fried pork chop in quite a while. Southern cafeterias like Morrison's
served them, usually boneless ones. I suppose that cafeterias like Piccadilly still serve them. The Mississippi
State University cafeteria had very good batter fried pork chops.
Lately I've been ordering duck quite often when I find it on a restaurant menu. It's tasty, usually served
pan-seared and cooked medium rare. However, the best duck that I ever had was smoked. A friend of our family used
used to go duck hunting every fall with a group of business friends at some sort of hunting club in Arkansas, and
the club's chef would stuff the ducks they'd killed with wild rice and then barbecue or smoke them. He'd put the
cooked ducks in foil bags and freeze them for the hunters to take home. Our friend didn't care for duck, he just
liked to shoot them, so he would give them to us when he returned home. Heating instructions were on the bag. They
were fully cooked, all you had to do was heat them up in the bag they were in. There was no rare duck here. The meat
was fully cooked and falling off the bones. It had a great smoky flavor.
Hominy isn't something that I miss a lot, although I never see it served in the North. I never liked it much.
It was too bland for my taste. I have memories, though, of my Dad making hominy in a black iron pot outside over
a wood fire. I think he may have soaked it in lye so that it would become hominy instead of merely boiled corn.
Hominy is actually more nourishing than corn. Due to the way it is made, a process using an alkali such as lye,
nutrients such as niacin are changed into forms more usable by the human body. Hominy making is another trick that
the colonists learned from Native Americans, who used certain kinds of alkaline wood ashes to make it.
Remember, if you want recipes for any of these things, just email me.
To be continued.
|
