FOOD & NUTRITION

What’s for dinner? Sloppy Joes, of course

2/3/2014
BY GRETCHEN McKAY
BLOCK NEWS ALLIANCE
A Sloppy Joe made with wild-boar meat and topped with housemade pickles, fried jalapeños and pickled cabbage from Meat & Potatoes restaurant in Pittsburgh.
A Sloppy Joe made with wild-boar meat and topped with housemade pickles, fried jalapeños and pickled cabbage from Meat & Potatoes restaurant in Pittsburgh.

Everyone has a tale about what the lunch ladies ladled up in the school cafeteria: Chicken nuggets so rubbery you swear they’d bounce if you threw one on the floor. Mystery-meat tacos. The dreaded (in our house, anyway) Brunch for Lunch. And, of course, greasy, tomato-y, oozing-from-the-bun sloppy Joe sandwiches.

Love ’em or hate ’em, the messy chopped meat and tomato sauce sandwich — I dare you to try eating one of those babies without staining your fingers or shirt — are for many an iconic lunch food of childhood. For meat eaters of a certain age, they also showed up fairly often on the dinner table at home, too, usually with tater tots and sometimes an iceberg-lettuce salad, if my mom was feeling especially fancy.

I grew up in the Manwich era, so forgive me if I wasn’t always a fan of the sloppy Joe. I always found the canned sauce, introduced by Hunt’s in 1969, a bit too sweet and soupy — more like an unsuccessful marriage of barbecue sauce and ketchup than the slightly tangy, slightly spicy sauce that the kitchen gods intended. But I could be in the minority: The sandwich is so beloved that it merits its own National Food Holiday (March 18), and somehow, I don’t think everyone who celebrates is cooking from scratch: ConAgra sold more than 70 million cans of Manwich last year.

But a homemade Joe? That can be a beautiful thing, not to mention a quick and easy way to get a filling (and inexpensive) dinner on the table.

The origins of the sloppy Joe sandwich is almost as messy as the dish itself, in that nobody knows for sure where or how it arrived on American tables. Some food historians believe the lunchroom staple — typically made with ground meat, tomato sauce or ketchup, onions and spices and served on a toasted hamburger bun — as American as apple pie. Noting that “similar beef concoctions” have graced the pages of cookbooks since the turn of the 12th century, “The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America” reports it may have evolved from a popular dish first served in Muscatine, Iowa, during President Calvin Coolidge’s administration. In 1926, a butcher by the name of Floyd Angell opened Maid-Rite, a walk-up eatery that eventually would become a chain of restaurants specializing in loose meat sandwiches. Also known as a Tavern or a Tastee, the Maid-Rite was made from steamed, lightly seasoned ground beef served on a warm bun.

Others, however, insist the sandwich was inspired by two famous restaurants named Sloppy Joe’s Bar — one in Havana, Cuba, owned by Jose Garcia, and another in Key West, Fla., that was a favorite haunt of the novelist Ernest Hemingway.

“The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink” dates the sandwich to about 1935, but can’t pinpoint its exact birth. “There is probably no Joe after whom it is named — but its rather messy appearance and tendency to drip off plate or roll makes ‘sloppy’ an adequate description and Joe is an American name of proletarian character with unassailable genuineness.”

Or perhaps the messy-to-eat sandwich was simply named after the type of restaurants that commonly served it. In the 1940s, any inexpensive eatery or lunch counter serving cheap food was known as a “Sloppy Joe.”

However the sandwich came to be, by the late 1930s it was a popular dish on dinner tables across the United States because it helped home cooks stretch scant meat supplies during the Great Depression and World War II. So many of our relatives ate so many sloppy Joes that the dish even was mentioned in several 1940s movies, including “Citizen Kane.”

The first printed recipe that officially dubbed the hamburger dish “sloppy Joe” was in 1963, in the “McCall’s Cook Book.” It called for sauteing half pound of ground beef in a skillet until it “loses its red color,” and then adding a can of beans in barbecue sauce and 1/4 cup catsup. The simmered mixture was served on toasted hamburger buns.

Skillet-cooked, hamburger-based sloppy Joes remain the American standard, though sometimes the dish is known by another name. In Rhode Island, for instance, where the tomato-y meat mixture is served on a torpedo roll, it’s called a dynamite sandwich; you’ll also find the sandwich described on menus as the yum yum, slush burger, spoonburger or, when it’s made with turkey or some sort of vegetable protein, a sloppy Jane or sloppy Tom. The New Jersey Sloppy Joe is something altogether different — a cold, triple-decker deli sandwich made with sliced meat (usually turkey or pastrami), Swiss cheese, coleslaw and Russian dressing.

Sloppy Joes probably never will edge out burgers as the favorite two-handed sandwich to eat out, but they do show up occasionally on local menus, and not just at greasy spoons. Meat & Potatoes, Downtown, offers a gourmet version of the sandwich ($12) that’s made with wild-boar meat and topped with housemade pickles, fried jalapenos and pickled cabbage. Church Brew Works in Lawrenceville also gives the humble Joe gourmet treatment by replacing boring hamburger with ground bison meat, and further manning it up with the restaurant’s award-winning Pious Monk Dunkel. Dubbed the Buffalo Sloppy Joe ($9), it’s served with cheddar cheese and crispy fried shallots on a brioche roll.

Rather take a stroll down memory lane with more of a classic? The sloppy Joes at Hanni’s Place in Library ($7.45) are made just like Mom’s, with ground beef and peppers and onions, served atop a soft round bun. At Mullen’s Bar in the North Side, the Sloppy Joe Sammich ($8.99) boasts a recipe that “is honestly from a grandmother... It has been passed down for 100 years.”

For people who don’t like or think they’re too busy to cook, there’s always Hunt’s Manwich sauces, of course, which now come in Bold and Thick & Chunky flavors in addition to the 1960s original. If you absolutely, positively don’t want to lift a finger except to push the microwave “on” button, there’s also a pre-mixed, pre-cooked Manwich product that comes in a heatable plastic container. (A lunch lady hairnet to wear while serving it is optional.)

But really, wouldn’t that be a mistake when the real deal is so easy to prepare?

You’re going to be browning ground beef (or turkey or pork) anyway, so why not give the sandwich a nutritional boost with fresh veggies and seasonings? It’s so much better tasting, and not that much harder. Your kids might even enjoy doing the mixing and chopping.

Another plus to cooking your sloppies from scratch: If you’re willing to be just a bit adventurous with the meat and seasonings, you’ll create a dish that will become legendary in your kids’ minds for all the right reasons.

Below, we offer a variety of sloppy Joe recipes that, if they were served in the school cafeteria, would make you think twice about brown-bagging it.

RECIPES

Traditional Sloppy Joes

1 pound lean (at least 80 percent) ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped (1/​2 cup)

1/​2 cup chopped celery

1 cup ketchup

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon ground mustard

1/​8 teaspoon pepper

6 burger buns, split

In 10-inch skillet, cook beef, onions and celery over medium heat 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until beef is done. Drain.

Stir in remaining ingredients except buns. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer uncovered 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are tender. Spoon into buns.

Yield: 6 sandwiches.

Source: Betty Crocker Cookbook, 11th Edition: The Big Red Cookbook

 

Asian Sloppy Joe Sliders

2 tablespoons canola oil

2 medium red onions, finely chopped

1 cup finely chopped celery

3 tablespoons sambal oelek or other Asian chile sauce

2 1/​2 tablespoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon peeled, minced fresh ginger

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 pound ground chicken thighs

1 pound ground pork

1 cup hoisin sauce

1 cup drained canned diced tomatoes

1/​2 cup fresh lime juice

20 brioche dinner rolls, split and toasted

Shredded iceberg lettuce and spicy pickles, for serving

In a large, deep skillet, heat canola oil until shimmering. Add onions, celery, chili sauce, garlic, ginger and a generous pinch each of salt and pepper. Cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are softened, about 8 minutes.

Add ground chicken and pork and cook, stirring occasionally to break up the meat, until no pink remains, about 5 minutes. Stir in hoisin, tomatoes and lime juice and bring to a boil. Simmer over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Spoon about 1/​4 cup of sloppy-Joe filling on the bottom half of each roll. Top with shredded lettuce and pickles and serve.

Sloppy-Joe filling can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.

Yield: 20 sliders.

Source: Foodandwine.com

 

Sloppy Joe Pie

This flaky, one-skillet savory pie isn’t really a pie at all, in that it just has a top crust. But no one will miss the buns, guaranteed.

1 Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust, softened as directed on box

1 1/​2 pound bulk turkey or pork sausage

1 medium onion, chopped (1/​2 cup)

1 cup frozen corn, thawed

1 cup chunky-style salsa

1/​2 cup chili sauce

2 tablespoons packed brown sugar

4 1/​2 ounce can chopped green chiles

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro, if desired

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Unroll pie crust on ungreased cookie sheet. With sharp knife, cut into a circle to fit the top of the pie pan. Cut out squares for a checkerboard pattern. If desired, place cutouts on crust to decorate, securing each with small amount of water.

Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until crust is light golden brown.

Meanwhile, in 10-inch skillet, cook sausage and onion over medium-high heat 8 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until sausage is no longer pink. Stir in remaining ingredients except cilantro. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer uncovered 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until corn is cooked and sauce is desired consistency.

Stir cilantro into sausage mixture. Carefully place warm baked crust over turkey mixture in skillet.

Yield: 4 servings.

Source: Adapted from The Big Book of Pies & Tarts