Roast Beef Po’ Boys Solve Everything

Cajun Entree

ROAST BEEF PO’ BOYS

INGREDIENTS

8 garlic cloves
3½ pounds beef chuck
¼ cup flour
¾ teaspoon pepper
½ tablespoon salt
¼ cup vegetable oil
5 8″-po’ boy, French, or Italian loaves
1 large carrot
1 medium yellow onion
1 small pickle
1 tomato (beefsteak is best)
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
4 cups beef stock (additional stock or water may be necessary later)
¾ cup mayonnaise
1½ cup shredded lettuce
¼ cup fresh parsley
1 tablespoon thyme

SPECIAL UTENSILS

no-stick pot
Dutch oven (If you don’t have a Dutch oven, use an oven-safe pot.)
cookie sheet

Serves 6. Takes 4 hours 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut garlic cloves in half. Make 16 1″-slits spaced evenly in roast beef. Insert a garlic half in each slit. Add beef, flour, pepper, and salt to large mixing bowl. Turn beef until it is well coated. Dice carrot and onion.

Add oil to no-stick pot. Heat oil at high heat. Add beef when a bit of onion starts to dance in the oil. Sear beef at high heat for 5 minutes on each side or until beef is well browned. Remove beef and place on plate. Add carrot and onion to no-stick pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion and carrot soften. Add bay leaf and Worcestershire sauce.

Add liquid with carrot and onion, beef, and beef stock to Dutch oven. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 3 hours or until beef is tender to the fork. Turn over beef chuck every 45 minutes and add additional stock or water as necessary to keep the level of liquid in Dutch oven to 1½”. Remove Dutch oven. Remove bay leaf.

Cut pickle into thin slices. Cut tomato into 10 slices. Shred beef using two forks. Slice bread loaves in half lengthwise. Spread 1 tablespoon mayonnaise over all bread-loaf halves. Add shredded beef equally over all bottom loaf-halves. Drizzle liquid from Dutch oven over shredded beef. Be sure to include in the liquid all the little bits or debris. Top beef-laden bread-loaf bottoms equally with lettuce, tomato slices, pickle slices, parsley, and thyme. Top with top halves of bread. Add sandwiches to cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 3 minutes to warm the bread and make it crispier. (This keeps the bread from getting soggy from the mayonnaise and the liquid from the Dutch oven.) Cut in half and serve immediately. Oh gosh, yes. And the liquid remaining in the Dutch oven makes a good soup base.

TIDBITS

1) This dish uses a bay leaf. Like every recipe I’ve come across, this one tells you to remove the bay leaf. Where do used bay leaves go? In the bin labeled “Bay Leaves,” of course. What? You mean you never wondered why bay leaves should be separated from trash and recyclables.

2) Well, in 2007 the great nations of the world, along with some very good ones, some okay ones, some dodgy lands but still attending, and even some teeny tiny countries such as San Marino and Nauru got together to solve the formidable problem of floating islands of plastic waste in our oceans. Oh, and stinky solid waste flowing unchecked into our harbors. They tackled that issue, too.

3) As might be expected from a meeting infested with international politicians, nothing happened. They all adjourned for lunch. Everyone ate roast beef po’ boys, except for vegetarians who ate kale po’ boys and the squidtarians who, of course, ate squid po’ boys.

4) As lunch started, the delegate from Russia bit into a bay leaf. “I’ve been insulted,” he cried. “This means thermonuclear war. Why should anyone live after this assault to my taste buds.” War clouds dissipated when all other conferees stated that they too had bay leaves in their sandwiches. “Throw the bay leaves out!” they all said. And they did.

5) A few minutes later, Carl LaFong, sitting near the trash can with all the discarded bay leaves stood up and addressed the meeting. “Zounds,” he said, “those bay leaves smell mighty good. Why not add tons of used bay leaves to our reeking harbors? That way our ports will smell wonderful without resorting to expensive sewage-treatment facilities.”

6) “Bonne idée,” shouted the slightly tipsy French delegate–slightly sloshed because listening to long winded speeches is thirsty work–“and let’s cover the plastic islands in our Earth’s oceans with bay leaves. This will hide the plastic while marinading all those fish while they’re still alive.”

7) “Hurrah for LaFong and that French guy,” said all the delegates, “let’s do what they proposed. Let’s dump all our bay leaves in the ocean.” And they did.

8) The delegates fired the caterer, but on the other hand, all the plastic islands in our oceans are hidden, our harbors smell nice, and we stepped back from the brink of nuclear war. So something good came out of the conference. And now we separate our bay leaves for pickup.