This is a variation on a recipe I first found at The Pioneer Woman Cooks… I’ve made it both ways, and MysteryMan will eat it both ways, but as for me… I like a little more veggies and flavor.

What I used:

• Cube steak
• Onion, green pepper, red pepper
• Mushrooms
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Red Hot Sauce
• Soy Sauce (and a little Ginger Teryaki)
• Seasoned Salt, cajun spices
• Butter
• Buns
• Cheese

What I did:

Step 1: Cook Veggies

I used half of a large vidalia onion, and half of both a green and red pepper, all cut into 1/4″ strips or so. These get cooked the way you normally cook veggies, in the frying pan with about 3 Tbsp of butter, stirring occasionally until onions are soft and clear. I usually wait a bit before throwing the mushrooms in because if I don’t, by the time it comes to serve them they’re little dime-sized shrivels of mystery substance.

Step 2: The Yuck Part

Meanwhile, back at the bat cave… you can find me making a very unpleasent face while having to touch raw meat. Being fiercely Italian and also having been used as slave-labor for making meatballs when I was a kid, I’ve had pleanty of experience getting raw beef under my fingernails, but I still make the yuck-face every time I have to do it. The important part is, however, that while the veggies are cooking, the steak gets cut into strips, kind of like this:

You can season it before or after… I did it in the middle, probably because according to my father it’s in my genetic makeup to be difficult and contrary at every available opportunity. (Hi Ricky!) Just sprinkle it with whatever you have handy. I used seasoned salt (just a little for me) then some cajun spices, and I think there was some garlic salt sitting on the chopping block, so I used that too.

Step 3: Switch ‘em out

I just dumped the cooked veggies into a handy tupperware, then heated another couple of tablespoons of butter in the same pan. (And I turned the heat up a little bit as well). The meat went in when the butter got hot:

This was about 15 seconds after I slid all the meat in, if that tells you how hot the pan was. I like to treat it like a steak on the grill as opposed to ground beef, so instead of stirring it around I just let it cook for a couple of minutes (probably 2) and then fliped it for another couple. (Until all pinkness was gone. I don’t do pinkness on meat, but that’s me and I was a vegetarian for 10 years so I obviously know nothing about it.)

Step 4: Introductions All Around

Veggies, meet Steak. Steak, meet veggies. Everything goes back in the pan (don’t drain any juices) along with 1/4 c or more of sauce. I like to think of these kind of sauces as whatever-is-in-your-fridge kind of sauces. Like marinade. So mine consisted of almost a 1/4 c of Worcestershire, a couple of glugs of soy sauce, a splash of some ginger teryaki sauce I found mixed in with my condiments, and about ten shakes of Red Hot. Oh, and another couple of tablespoons of butter. (What? This is how I cook. There is no method to the madness.) But it sure looks good…

Step 5: Bun It

I think for this sandwich, toasting the bun is absolutely necessary. Otherwise the bread would get way to mushy for my tastes. And of course in my world “toast” means “forget under broiler until bun is charcoal.” Oh, whatever. It’s edible.

Then, this is how I build my sandwich. Bun, provolone cheese, little bit of steak buried under an excessive amount of veggies (hi, reformed vegetarian here), a little extra sauce spooned over, and more cheese.

Step 6: Chow Down!

Mine was plated with mac and cheese, because I really just feel like my jeans aren’t tight enough yet, okay?

(Okay, honestly, after looking at that picture, how many of you are going to skip the sandwich and go make yourself a box of velveeta?)

Tags: cooking, recipe, sandwich, steak, veggies